CONGRESS TO DEBATE HOUSING
STOUT, JONATHAN
Washington and the Nation Congress to Debate Housing By Jonathan Stout WASHINGTON, D. C. FOR THE FIRST TIME in eleven long years of effort, the reactionary 'coalition which has held sway over...
...Washington and the Nation Congress to Debate Housing By Jonathan Stout WASHINGTON, D. C. FOR THE FIRST TIME in eleven long years of effort, the reactionary 'coalition which has held sway over Congress since 1938 was forced this week to give the House of Representatives a chance to vote on the issue of public housing...
...Illinois...
...Furthermore, it said, the "conditions of employment and earnings aro dropping...
...He urged party workers to "lick the antihousing lobby once and for all...
...This is regarded as a minor difference which can easily be met by amending the House bill, or by agreement in a joint conference committee of the House and Senate...
...The major difference between the measure already approved by the Senate and the one presently before the House is that the Senate bill provides for 810.000 public housing units to be erected during the next six years, while the House measure would provide for 1,050,000 units over the next seven years...
...Undermined by Spence's move, the, seven reactionaries met behind closed doors last week and bowed to the inevitable...
...The four Republicans were Representatives Leo E. Allen of Illinois...
...The three Democrats were Representatives E. E. Cox of Georgia, Howard W. Smith of Virginia and William M. Colmer of Mississippi...
...and it will be only the 'the second item of social legislation (the first one being extension of rent control) the 81st Congress has adopted in the six months it has been in session...
...THIS WAS ONE OF THE FACTS behind a report made public over the past weekend by the Public Affairs Institute in Washington predicting that unemployment, which" in May stood at 3.289.000, may rise to 6,000,000 by the end of this year, and to almost 8,000,000 by the middle of next year...
...The Public Affairs Institute report said that "Nothing in sight indicates • halt In unemployment trends...
...Tha Institute said unemployment stood highest in tha industrial states of California...
...Two Democrats, Cox and Colmer, and one Republican, Herter, switched their votes, and sent the housing bill to the floor of Congress under a hampering special rule, which provides that the bill shall be open to all amendments from the floor and be subjected to eight hours of general debate...
...Traditionally, the construction industry has provided a great part of the economic backbone of tjje nation...
...Pennsylvania...
...To halt the ominous tone of the warnings being sounded throughout the country, the Administration is counting heavily on the tonic effect of a revitalized construction industry as part of a multipronged brake on the deflationary spiral...
...When the Rules Committee turned down the housing bill two weeks ago...
...The vote will come on the Administration's housing bill, H.R...
...Massachusetts...
...Official Government surveys and estimates support the views expressed by the Institute's report...
...Collapse of the construction industry, for instance, was part of the reason for the tailspin of 1929...
...For that reason there was anxious scanning in top Administration circles of a preliminary report a few days ago by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing a decline in employment in the construction industry last May of 42,000 workers over the previous year...
...Clarence J. Brown of Ohio, James W. Wadsworth of New York and Christian A. Herter Of Massachusetts...
...and that, despite the fact that the estimated value of construction wfcs on the increase...
...New York end New Jersey...
...If the House joins the Senate in giving President Truman a housing bill he can sign, it will help the President to redeem one of his major campaign pledges...
...BACKING UP THE PRESIDENT by bringing to bear the full weight of the Democratic party's political machinery, National Chairman J. Howard McGrath asked State party chairmen and their top aides to "get the truth" about the housing program "to every precinct worker and every voter...
...Brent Spence, Democrat, of Kentucky, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee which earlier had approved the housing bill, filed the necessary resolution in the House to force the Rules Committee to report the bill to the floor for final action...
...three Southern Democrats Joined the four Republicans in the reactionary coalition...
...In short, costs of construction were higher although employment was lower...
...On the oontrary, industry reports indicate further tildes downward...
...The Senate approved a similar bill with some minor changes in April by a vote of 57 to 1. The Truman Administration expects a victory in the House, although not by quite so decisive a margin as in the Senate...
...Two weks ago the Rules Committee, by a vote of 7 to 5, refused to report the housing bill out...
...Ohio, Michigan...
...4009, most inclusive in the nation's history...
...Then, acting under the new procedure...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 26
