We must decide whether we shall meanly lose or nobly save this last best hope of earth--and, like Lincoln, meet the challenge with the help and guidance of the Creator. With His help we cannot fail. Sincerely, TAX JUSTICE LEAGUE OF PENNSYLVANIA, LEHIGH COUNTY TAXPAYERS' LEAGUE, INC., DEAR SENATOR: Senator Taft is now holding hearings on his public housing bill (S. 866), the new W.-E.-T. bill, and hopes to jam it through. This is the call to the colors in the battle for freedom and the right to own property. If Taft's cynical program is carried through, then the Republicans become simply another New Deal Party. The secret is that Chicago and several other communities are to have local elections this spring. The Senate leaders have so soon forgotten the mandate of the voters last November. In order to capture CIO support they are standing pat on New Deal controls. We voice our opposition to S. 866, which is the new W.-E.-T. bill. The only significant change over the old W.-E.-T. bill is that it increases the cost of the Federal Government from $6,000,000,000 to nearly $7,000,000,000 over a 45-year period. The bill is not an emergency measure but is long-range slum clearance and public-housing program. It is being rushed through hearings, hardly giving Senators time for throughtful and responsible study. It will cost nearly $7,000,000,000 and place Government in the housekeeping business for every municipality for 45 years through loans and controls. It is not a veterans' measure. We urge postponement of the bill's consideration until every Senator and the rest of the country can study it. Then the folks back home can let the Senators know how they feel about this steam-rolled legislation. It is a real threat to personal liberty and free enterprise in the conduct of the building and real-estate industry. It is a legislative monstrosity, offering all things to all men and resulting in contradictory, obscure, and ambiguous provisions almost impossible to interpret or reconcile. W.-E.-T. and the social philosophy behind it threaten private enterprise. It perpetrates high housing costs. It would damage FHA, Its proposed handling of farm-home loans is a fantastic, confused example of peculiar and free-handed financing. The emergency today is veterans' housing. W. E. T. claims to help-it does just the opposite W.-E.-T. is bound to hurt the veterans' housing program. W.-E.-T. substitutes a long-range social program to compete and interfere with the current No. 1 problem-which is veterans' housing. MARK R. BITTNER. EIGHTY-FIFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY, STATE OF INDIANA, HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION No. 2 Indiana needs no guardian and intends to have none. We Hoosiers-like the people of our sister States-were fooled for quite a spell with the magician's trick that a dollar taxed out of our pockets and sent to Washington will be bigger when it comes back to us. We have taken a good look at said dollar. We find that it lost weight in its journey to Washington and back. The political brokerage of the bureaucrats has been deducted. We have decided that there is no such thing as "Federal" aid. We know that there is no wealth to tax that is not already within the boundaries of the 48 States. So we propose henceforward to tax ourselves and take care of ourselves. We are fed up with subsidies, doles, and paternalism. We are no one's stepchild. We have grown up. We serve notice that we will resist Washington, D. C., adopting us. Resolved by the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, the Senate concurring: That we respectfully petition and urge Indiana's Congressmen and Senators to vote to fetch our country courthouse and city halls back from Pennsylvania Avenue. We want government to come home. 99279 47- -37 Resolved further, That we call upon the legislatures of our sister States and on good citizens everywhere who believe in the basic principles of Lincoln and Jefferson to join with us, and we with them, to restore the American Republic and our 48 States to the foundations built by our fathers. (Adopted by House, January 13, 1947.) (Adopted by Senate, January 22, 1947.) (Introduced by Mr. George Henley, of Bloomington, and Mr. L. Teętor, of Hagerstown.) Hon. CHARLES TOBEY, GREGG & GEDNEY, Glendale 3, Calif., March 27, 1947. Senate Office Building, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR SENATOR: If the Wagner-Ellender-Taft bill, S. 866, is permitted to become law, the building industry will be completely sovietized. The NHA will control, plan, program, research, and eventually destroy the business of the small home builders who have built the Nation's homes. May I entreat you to assist in stopping passage of a bill which will be so completely dangerous. Very truly yours, ROY V. GEDNEY. Hon. CHARLES TOBEY, ALL AMERICAN HOMES, Glendale 3, Calif., March 27, 1947. Senate Office Building, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR SENATOR: If the Wagner-Ellender-Taft bill, S. 866, is permitted to become law, the building industry will be completely sovietized. The NHA will control, plan, program, research, and eventually destroy the business of the small home builders who have built the Nation's homes. May I entreat you to assist in stopping passage of a bill which will be so completely dangerous. Very truly yours, EDGAR N. GREGG. Hon. CHARLES W. TOBEY, ROCHESTER HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: Will you register the opposition of 220 members of this association to the passage of the so-called W-E-T bill? Private industry in this country has been able to house the millions of people in the country in the past without Government subsidy and interference. We have no apologies to offer for any lack of housing in the past 5 years, all of which was necessited by wartime conditions. If the Government will eliminate its present restrictions and give the private home builder an opportunity to build, there will be no necessity of the program which is contemplated. Put this proposed legislation aside and watch what happens. Very truly yours, ROCHESTER HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION, By J. RAYMOND TOBIN, Executive Secretary. STATE OF CALIFORNIA, DIVISION OF BUILDING AND LOAN, San Francisco, March 24, 1947. Subject: S. 866, Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill, section 502. Secretary, Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. HILL: This bill provides for conversion of Federal to State savings or building and loan associations, etc., but subject to approval of board or Federal Home Loan Bank Administration and by Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. Our Building and Loan Association Act unqualifiedly provides for conversion of State to Federal upon affirmative majority of investors qualified to vote, and without restrictive approval of the building and loan commissioner of this State. Many State-licensed associations have converted under our law. Federal associations likewise should be permitted to convert to State associations on affirmative majority vote of its investors. That part of bill requiring approval of Federal Home Loan Bank Administration and Insurance Corporation should be eliminated. I believe it should be made a two-way road. FRANK C. MORTIMER, Building and Loan Commissioner. NATIONAL FEDERATION OF POST OFFICE CLERKS, STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF S. 866, THE TAFT-ELLENDER-WAGNER BILL, BY THE Hon. CHARLES W. TOBEY, Chairman, Senate Banking and Currency Committee, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. MR. CHAIRMAN: The National Federation of Post Office Clerks, speaking for its 70,000 members in every major city in the country, respectfully urges you and your committee to act favorably on S. 866, the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill, with all possible dispatch. A year ago, the Federation endorsed S. 1592, Seventy-ninth Congress, on which S. 866 is based. Our national convention held in Milwaukee, Wis., August 1924, 1946, endorsed the comprehensive housing program adopted by the Senate by an overwhelming vote on April 15, 1946. In reiterating what we said then in support of the present measure, the Federation wishes to record its belief that S. 866 would be strengthened if the committee reverted to the principles laid down in S. 1592 insofar as the permanent national housing agency, mutual home ownership, and urban redevelopment sections of the present bill are concerned. In addition, we strongly recommend that the committee restore the prevailing wage amendment which was added to S. 1592 on the Senate floor. Currently the need for housing is growing at a faster rate than the supply of new homes. The huge housing deficit the Nation has accumulated cannot be met in 1 or 2 years. S. 866 embodies a sound and conservative long-term program which places the burden of responsibility for meeting the need on private enterprise and local initiative. This plan. improved and strengthened in accordance with the Senate enactment in 1946, should be the basis of the Nation's community program of peacetime reconstruction. Our membership, which has as high as or a higher proportion of veterans of World War II than any comparable organization, is vitally interested in S. 866 because it proposes to remedy a blight affecting the welfare of practically every member. We urge that the committee take early and favorable action. Respectfully yours, Hon. CHARLES W. TOBEY, E. C. HALLBECK, Legislative Representative. THE AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION, Chairman, Banking and Currency Committee, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR: There is submitted herewith a statement of the position of the American Bankers Association on S. 866, introduced by Senators Taft, Ellender, and Wagner. It would be appreciated if you would see that this statement is included in the hearings on this bill before the committee. Sincerely yours, C. FRANCIS COCKE, Chairman, Committee on Federal Legislation. STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION ON S. 866 BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY The preamble to S. 866, introduced by Senator Taft with Senators Ellender and Wagner as cosponsors, provides among other purposes "that the general welfare and security of the Nation and the health and living standards of its people require a production of residential construction and related community development sufficient to remedy the serious cumulative housing shortage, to eliminate slum and blighted areas, to realize as soon as feasible the goal of a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family, and to develop and redevelop communities so as to advance the growth and wealth of the Nation." This bill appears to be a revised version of the proposed General Housing Act of 1946 (S. 1592) sponsored by the same Senators in the last Congress. The changes made are more in form than in substance and therefore this new bill is susceptible to the same criticisms and objections expressed by the American Bankers Association against S. 1592 before this committee in December 1945. This bill seeks to effectuate its purpose by further liberalization of existing credit aids; by establishing new forms of Government guaranty to institutional lenders; by greatly increasing direct governmental financial aid to local public bodies and to farmers for farm housing; all of which would needlessly increase the present oversupply of money and credit in our national economy. These methods are characteristic of a depression economy such as we experienced during the thirties when the Federal Government sought to prime the pump by setting up institutions to insure mortgage loans and other institutions to finance construction by direct Government loans and grants. At that time we had a deflated economy. Private credit was weak. State and local governments were heavily in debt, but the Federal debt, comparatively speaking, was small. Today these conditions are reversed. Private credit is abundant. State and local debt is small, but the Federal debt is tremendous. The liberal credit measures proposed by this bill will not produce the essential items of material and labor needed to build houses. By bringing more buyers into the market it would increase the competition for such materials and such homes as are available and thus put into motion inflationary forces which would further increase building costs and further retard the building of homes. The loans and grants for public housing and farm housing provided in the bill would similarly increase competition for scarce building materials. In addition they would increase the size of the Government debt, ultimately adding billions to such debt. The burden of this debt, plus the losses which will result from excessive credit, will have to be borne by the taxpayers. The banks of this country are prepared and willing to continue to make loans to finance the building, remodeling, and purchase of individual homes and rental properties and do not need or desire the credit aids proposed in this bill. This is evidenced by the fact that banks are now the leading lenders in the home mortgage field. Moreover, at the end of 1946 mutual savings banks, national banks, and State-chartered commercial banks had a total of over $50,000,000,000 of time and savings deposits of which well over $20,000,000,000 are available for investment in home mortgages. Insurance companies, building and loan associations, and mortgage bankers are likewise ready and willing to finance home construction. All of these institutions have more funds available for this purpose than at any other time and interest rates on mortgages are lower today than at any time in history. No additional or new credit incentives or aids are needed to meet the demands to finance the anticipated home-construction program which will be undertaken by the home-construction industry just as soon as materials and labor are in ample supply and construction costs level off. The scarcities of material and labor, and not a lack of credit, are the real bottlenecks which are hampering the flow of new homes. This bill in no way strikes at the causes of these shortages, but rather would tend to aggravate them. So far there have been presented what the association considers to be the fundamental objections to the bill as a whole. The association also wishes to point out specifically to the committee what it deems to be defects in various provisions of the bill. TITLES II AND III Instead of continuing the National Housing Agency on a permanent basis as proposed in the former S. 1592, title II of S. 866 would establish a new agency to be known as the National Housing Commission. This Commission would be composed of a National Housing Administrator and staff and a Coordinating Council. The functions and duties of the Commission would in general be to develop coordinated policies and programs to implement the national housing policy established by this bill and to see so far as possible that such policies and programs were carried out. The National Housing Administrator is also charged with the duty of administering the provisions of title VIII of the bill, which deal with land assembly and its preparation for development. Apparently it is intended under the title III of this bill to give the constituent agencies of the National Housing Agency-namely, the Federal Housing Administration, the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration, and the Federal Public Housing Administration-a greater degree of independence in administering their operations than they now have under the National Housing Agency or they would have had under S. 1592 had it become law. Nevertheless, such independence appears to be largely illusory since each of these agencies is “charged with the duty to cooperate actively in the work of the Commission and to coordinate and administer its housing activities consistently with the general policies and programs developed" by the Commission. The creation of this new agency is subject to the same objection to the continuation of the present National Housing Agency as proposed in S. 1592. At a time when every effort is being made to shrink the overexpanded governmental bureaucracy, it seems inappropriate to add to this bureaucracy by superimposing another agency, the need for which is questionable to say the least. Additional appropriations would be required to pay the salaries of the Administrator and his staff plus the other administrative expense of the Commission, when instead a reduction in expenditure should be the aim. The set-up of the Commission makes it clear that the Administrator would have the dominant position in the determination of housing policies and programs. He would be operating on a day-to-day basis whereas the Council would meet only on his call (although at least once a month). He would carry or guide all of the research upon which such policies and programs would be based. His position calls for unbiased and impartial judgment and yet the bill charges him with the administration of the urban redevelopment title of the bill which involves direct Government loans and grants and is closely related to public housing programs. Government housing activities fall mainly in two categories. One of these is exemplified by agencies dealing with private lenders such as the Federal Housing Administration which administers a mutual fund for insuring mortgage loans made by private financial institutions and by the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration consisting of a system of mortgage discount banks and privately owned through federally chartered thrift and home-financing associations. The other category is exemplified by agencies providing direct financial aid to public instrumentalities such as the Federal Public Housing Authority which administers the United States Housing Act under which direct Federal loans and grants are made to local public housing bodies. These two categories are of such diverse character that they are not susceptible of coordination. If any coordination is desirable it should take the form of correlating the housing activities in the first category with other governmental agencies dealing with private financial institutions and correlating the activities in the second category with the Government agency or agencies furnishing direct aid to public bodies. Such a coordination was brought about under the Reorganization Act of 1939 when by Executive order of the President pursuant thereto the Federal Housing Administration and the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration (then the Federal Home Loan Bank Board) was transferred to the Federal Loan Agency and the Federal Public Housing Administration (then the United States Housing Authority) was transferred to the Federal Works Agency. Obviously it would lead to more efficient operation of these agencies and be a sounder and more economical plan generally if, instead of setting up the new National Housing Commission as contemplated in this bill, the National Housing Agency was terminated and the Federal Housing Administration and Federal Home Loan Bank Administration were retransferred to the Federal Loan Agency and the Federal Public Housing Administration was retransferred to the Federal Works Agency or these constituent agencies of the National Housing Agency were restored to their former wholly independent status. |