Now, Milwaukee's program. After 2 years during which "temporary" and "emergency" were the key words in our housing programs the city has found that the temporary measures were not equal to the situation. Beginning this spring, the city decided that it would not construct another single temporary unit. It decided to get under way with a full-scale permanent housing program that would tax its physical and financial resources to the limit. It sadly discovered that its physical resources were the greater. This despite an initial advantage. Milwaukee already had a planned slum-clearance project in the sixth ward toward which the Federal Government had allocated $1,786,000 before the end of the war. With the aid of special legislation and an outright city grant of $962,000 to meet postwar costs, the city is now in construction of 232 units in that project. With a portion of the anticipated proceeds of the $3,500,000 bond issue for veterans permanent housing, the city housing authority is nearing the construction stage on 584 units to cost an estimated total of $5,500,000. Of that total, almost $2,000,000 will come from the city's bond issue as an outright grant, the rest to be financed by a revenue bond issue by the authority. The rest of the city's bond issue is scheduled to be spent in a similar financial pattern, one which it is figured will produce an average monthly rental level of $50 for the veteran-tenant. The city is thus embarked on a program of about 1,400 units, a very substantial program, one that will stand comparison in size with any in the country outside of New York. Yet we are but beginning to fill the need. More importantly we have the physical capacity to do more. It is estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 public housing units can be completed in Milwaukee County in a year without interfering unduly with private residential building. One of the most conservative estimates of immediate need is 4,200 units. The only missing factor is money. Rather than plunge into an exhaustive study of the financial difficulties of the city of Milwaukee, I ask you to accept my word that payments on the bonds now being issued, plus rising operational costs, will shove the city's tax rate unconscionably close to the point where home ownership becomes unprofitable. The city is right at the end of its financial tether. The county has gone into debt to finance an extensive temporary program and is unable to help the city. The State legislature tried to give us aid, only to have the State Supreme Court rule that such aid violated the State constitution. The Federal Government remains. If it responds, we are in a better position than if the county or State could have helped. If it refuses, we will not be able to do that which we must do to save the living standards of urban America. That last statement is submitted in the full light of what we believe is the most detailed large-scale blight study yet made. Almost completed and not yet published, a report which incorporates the findings of the Milwaukee health department, the land commission, tax department, and housing authority, indicates that almost onefourth of the city's 170,000 dwellings are substandard. It shows what is wrong with a large section of Milwaukee housing, and what it shows is a shocking commentary on what this infectious disease called blight is doing to our living standards. We regard as a myth the assumption that somehow or other the problems of blight elimination and low-rent housing are capable of self-remedy. A study of the history of urban growth and subsequent decline will serve to prove that blight's most important characteristic is its infectiousness. It is not only that houses, growing old and obsolescent, become dilapidated public liabilities, but that they finally make whole blocks and neighborhoods a community responsibility. It is here that we come full circle. To do anything about these blighted areas, we must have low-rent housing into which we can move those temporarily or permanently dispossessed by blight clearance. Without the one, we cannot have the other. And we will have neither unless we declare it national policy that this country's people shall be well housed and that all of us will pay for it. The local government is naturally the unit to determine what should be done, but it cannot afford a program of the scope which will mean actual progress instead of mere delay in the process of decay. With $962,000 and almost twice that in Federal aid, the city of Milwaukee is beginning with 232 units in a slum area. How much can be done, even in clearance alone, with the $2,500,000 that is Milwaukee's maximum? Not enough to begin on the hundreds of blighted blocks in the city unless the Federal Government helps. It is well known by those of you who represent urban districts that there are certain cities in which a direct Federal-city relationship is ideal. Milwaukee is one of them. We know what we must do and we know how it must be done. The Federal Government in the interests of uniformly improved housing throughout the Nation is in the best position to levy the necessary taxes and distribute the money. If the Congress and the President are now ready to approve this badly needed national policy, we will lose no time in showing them money well spent. The Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill can be the vehicle of one of this country's greatest social advances, decent housing for all its citizens. The CHAIRMAN. Are there questions of Mayor Zeidler? Mr. KUNKEL. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kunkel. Mr. KUNKEL. Mayor Zeidler, last year we passed a bill which permitted the construction of houses at a higher cost than that contained in the previous limitation. Mr. ZEIDLER. That is correct. Mr. KUNKEL. I think it was proposed and passed primarily for the benefit of the city of Milwaukee. What has been done in Milwaukee since that bill was passed? Mr. ZEIDLER. The passage of that bill made possible the beginning of this 232-unit project called Hillside in the most blighted area of the city of Milwaukee. Mr. KUNKEL. Then, you have gone ahead, and Milwaukee has paid the added cost in order to secure the housing? Mr. ZEIDLER. That is right, we have paid the added cost. Mr. KUNKEL. I noticed that you said that the Supreme Court of Wisconsin had declared a State law unconstitutional. In other words, the organic law of the State limits what the State can do in respect to its own problems; is that correct? Mr. ZEIDLER. The State constitution has a prohibition against works of internal improvement, and the State supreme court held that moneys given to communities for public housing constituted grants toward works of internal improvement. Mr. KUNKEL. In other words, the organic law of the State prohibits the State from undertaking a problem by the State. In other words, the people of Wisconsin placed that limitation upon what they can do; is that correct? Mr. ZEIDLER. Yes, the limitation was placed in 1948. Mr. KUNKEL. Yes, but it is there. Mr. ZEIDLER. That is right. Mr. KUNKEL. It is there because the people of Wisconsin have placed an organic limitation on what they can do for the welfare of the people in Wisconsin, because they do not want to take the responsibility. Therefore, you come to the Federal Government and request that the Federal Government assume that responsibility; is that correct? Mr. ZEIDLER. That is, in part, the picture of it. The people of Wisconsin, through their legislature, desired to do something, and collected a great deal of money under a license tax. But they discovered, upon the disbursing of the money, that the State supreme court held that that disbursement was illegal and they are now in the process of correcting it by constitutional amendment, initiating the first steps toward that correction. Mr. KUNKEL. These blighted areas in the city of Milwaukee, are you removing them at once, or are you going along with the rather prevalent policy of permitting those to remain as long as there is an acute housing shortage? Mr. ZEIDLER. In the city of Milwaukee we have a peculiar law called the condemnation law, which allows the city building inspector to condemn any building which is considered unfit for human habitation. That law has not been evoked to any great extent in order to keep whatever units are available, available as long as there is a critical housing shortage. Mr. KUNKEL. When was that law passed, Mayor Zeidler? Do you remember? Mr. ZEIDLER. I think that law is about 20 years old. Mr. KUNKEL. And you say the State of Wisconsin is taking steps to remedy the organic law which prohibits the State of Wisconsin from undertaking this type of project? Mr. ZEIDLER. Yes. Mr. KUNKEL. Thank you. Mr. SMITH. What is your tax rate? You spoke about it being very high. Mr. ZEIDLER. Our tax rate is $4 per thousand. That is the highest tax rate in the history of the city. It represents a $55,000,000 levy on the taxpayers. Mr. SMITH. I want to compliment the witness on being frank as to his political affiliation. I do not suppose that you would hesitate to say that public housing is synonymous with socialized housing? Mr. ZEIDLER. Certainly public housing, as schools and others, are very similar in concept to the comprehension held by many that it is a socialized form of activity. Mr. PATMAN. Including the Post Office Department? Mr. ZEIDLER. Yes, including the operation of free roads. Mr. SMITH. But you would regard public housing as socialized housing? Mr. ZEIDLER. I believe I would, yes. Mr. BOGGS. In view of the fact that Senator Taft is the author of this legislation, what is the difference between the Socialist and a Republican? Mr. ZEIDLER. A Republican usually has more money than a Socialist. Mr. BUCHANAN. Mayor Zeidler, in the construction of these 232 units, just what are your average per unit costs? Mr. ZEIDLER. They approximate $9,000. Mr. BUCHANAN. $9,000? Mr. ZEIDLER. That is including all costs. Mr. BUCHANAN. That figures out at how much per room: $1,800 per room? Mr. ZEIDLER. $1,700 or $1,800 per room. The CHAIRMAN. In connection with this project which is known in Wisconsin as Project 2-1 Milwaukee, the Housing and Home Finance Agency has put in the record at our request the information with respect to it which, without objection, I will insert in the record at this point. The maximum Public Housing Administration loan under the Housing Act was $1,607,400,000. The minimum local participation under the United States Housing Act is $178,600. The local participation in excess of development cost under the McCarthy Act, 1,082,536. Are there further questions? Mr. PATMAN. Seriously, I would like to know: Evidently you must be well informed on the difference between the two parties. I would just like to know what you conceive to be the essential differences between Socialism and the other parties, including the Democrats, Republicans, and the Communists. Mr. ZEIDLER. The essential difference between them. I do not know if this is particularly a matter of public housing, but I will be glad to explain it to you. They usually tell it in the form of a cow story. The Socialist will take your cow and divide it in half and give it to somebody else. Mr. PATMAN. I am not trying to be facetious. I am serious. I consider that you would be a good witness to answer the question. You must be well informed on the political parties. Mr. ZEIDLER. If there is no objection, I will answer it. Let us take the remotest party first. The Communist Party. The Communist Party is a party pledged to the dictatorship of the proletariat. It believes that the proletariat or the industrial worker element of the society must rule society by a dictatorship. It has, in practice, gone considerably away from that concept to where it now is a dictatorship of an elite bureaucracy. The Socialist Party, or the Socialists as a whole-and they are well represented all over the world, particularly by that element in the British Labor Movement-conceive the function of Government to be democratic in its essence, and he feels that wherever there is a basic activity or a basic production method which is not being met, or which is not being carried fully by the private enterprise system, that there it is a responsibility of the community to step in and try to meet that need. 75674-48 -36 Mr. COLE. May I interrupt? Mr. ZEIDLER. Yes. Mr. COLE. I notice in many of the statements which we have had before us-here is one such statement: "It is submitted that private enterprise is not providing and cannot provide in the foreseeable future adequate rental housing." That is in furtherance of that policy, is it not? Mr. ZEIDLER. In other words, a Socialist generally believes that there is a place for Government enterprise in some of the economic spheres. of life. The difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is one which I am not fully competent to testify about. The CHAIRMAN. I think we will excuse you from testifying on that question, unless Mr. Patman insists. Mr. PATMAN. I will not insist on further testimony along that line, if the witness does not desire to give it. But I am still curious to know just exactly what he considers to be the essential difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and the Socialist Party. Mr. ZEIDLER. The essence of the Democratic Party, if I may continue, appears to me to be a party which favors stricter regulatory measures on the part of government. They feel that many of the economic ills, according to some of the practices and expressions, can be met by stricter regulation on the part of some governmental unit. I view the Republican Party as a party which represents largely that viewpoint which says that restrictions are undesirable, in the main. In other words, the Republican Party, in my concept, has taken the Jeffersonian concept, that that government is best which governs least. The Democratic Party has taken the concept that the strong central government is the best form of government. Mr. PATMAN. But that would only apply in the recent emergency, would it not? Mr. ZEIDLER. It all depends on who is in. Mr. PATMAN. When we needed regulation and control, like price control, the Democrats wanted controls, which would give the people an opportunity to have decent standards of living. Mr. ZEIDLER. But the Republicans took the initiative in destroying those controls. Mr. PATMAN. Do you not consider a Fascist and a Communist ultimately the same in their goals? Mr. ZEIDLER. Their ideologies may be different but in practice they are very similar. Mr. PATMAN. And ultimately will be the same because each one believes in a dictatorship form of government? Mr. ZEIDLER. That is right. Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cole. Mr. COLE. Like Dr. Smith, I want to compliment you. I think you have made a fine presentation. Mr. ZEIDLER. Thank you. Mr. COLE. May I say this to you, however: you have not commented upon the other sections of this bill before us. I wonder whether you have any comments to make? |