of the people that are now living there. That has happened in several areas of Washington, here, and I am sure in other cities.

But this Detroit project, I thought, was rather encouraging, and I think they were enforcing the city ordinances. I had some discussion with the city officials who took me around, and I said, "Now, how long is this enforcement going to continue with the pressure that you have on this housing supply? You don't have any neighborhood interests."

Of course, they have stimulated the interest of some citywide organizations in that area, but they haven't done much in that area. And I think this whole matter of rehabilitation and maintaining an area, maintaining the present standards, means that you must have law enforcement.

Now, all these officials and experts talk very nicely about law enforcement action as if it were very easy. You see the chief of police and he promises you that he is going to enforce the law. That is fine. The mayor promises you that he is going to enforce the law. Of course, he promises you everything, just as he promises the Federal Government when he presents a project.

He says, "We are going to relocate those people." Of course, we are going to relocate them, and we are going to enforce the city ordinances. But you know there are many conversions that I have seen take place overnight. The families are there the next morning. You will find 4 families in a 1-family house. What are you going to do about it? Who is going to prevent that? How are you going to prevent that overnight conversion of houses? I would like to know from the experts. They tell me it can be done, but I know of only one method, and that is to get the interest of the neighborhoods around there.

I know in Chicago, after they had the promises of the mayor, the chief of police, of course, they were going to enforce the city ordinances, but we find the captain never attended our meetings until we got the neighbors into it; then he was on the spot all the time. And the local alderman, you see, has something to say about these things, too, as I understand it. You have to get his interest, and you have to get the interest of the local people. How you can do all this without getting that interest, I don't know, any more than you can deal with these situations in precinct No. 2 around the town, that the Post is describing so eloquently these days. I don't see how you can cure a situation like that just by purely legal methods. You have to get some interest on the part of the people in the area.

I think the same is true in this urban redevelopment, whether you call it urban renewal or urban redevelopment. I think that is the biggest issue behind the scenes here, as to how we can get this interest.

The only hope I can see is some sort of neighborhood organization, and not the type of neighborhood organization that is set up by a city government, and all these formalities they go through of having a downtown committee pass resolutions-how much that is going to affect neighborhoods, I just don't know. I haven't seen many results in neighborhoods from the work of these downtown organizations and their many resolutions.

How to get the neighbors and how to convert the experts to this point of view, the necessity of having neighborhood participation,

that again is a very difficult question. It is difficult, in the first place, to get the experts together, to get them to work on one program. That is an enormously difficult problem; especially the highway people.

I think that is the toughest problem that we have today, as I see it, in most cities in the United States. The problem of discussing, having them sit down together, all of them, and discuss the various uses that are going to be made of the city land. I don't know how it can be done. Maybe Mr. Cole should take a more realistic approach

The CHAIRMAN. Maybe if we could find some way of changing human nature, Father, we would be all right.

Monsignor O'GRADY. I don't think you can.

But you ought to look at these questions. When people come before a committee like this, you ought to look at the facts. How can you live, if you have all this continuous competition for city land? And at least if they can't agree, there ought to be a possibility of getting together to discuss it.

Now, I have tried, in Democratic days, to induce them to bring in the highway people around this town, the Bureau of Public Roads, to sit in with the housing people and to discuss these common problems in local communities, and never has such a meeting been held.

The CHAIRMAN. I have always said, and often said, that if you have a bad situation in a given locality or a given town, then all the people have to do is look in the mirror and find out who is responsible for it. They alone can clean it up, if they want to.

Monsignor O'GRADY. Yes; the local people can clean it up.

The CHAIRMAN. People from Washington can't clean up Chicago. Monsignor O'GRADY. I think you are right, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Local people must clean it up.

Monsignor O'GRADY. I think they must.

The CHAIRMAN. There is never any necessity in America for dirt. They can be clean.

Monsignor O'GRADY. They can keep their houses clean; they can keep their backyards clean; they can keep their houses painted; and hey can repair those houses, too.

The CHAIRMAN. What we ought to have is a law, I think-a law vouldn't do it but we ought to have some system where at least wice a year in every town of the United States, we have a cleanup veek in which we clean up the town, clean up everything. Then those people that don't have enough money to paint, the Government ought o furnish them the paint, and they ought to paint up and clean up. Monsignor O'GRADY. But there is some possibility in local leaderhip. I have seen in local areas-and I have often said to some of ur church people in Chicago, "I think you ought to give a good xample around here and clean up your own buildings." It is surrising how it spreads. If you get a few families in an area, you an talk a few families into cleaning their places up and making pairs. I could cite illustration after illustration of that sort of ing in the cities.

But your expert, you see, goes into the neighborhood. He analyzes He thinks he has the solution. And usually, I have seen some of he houses that have been repaired and they have been priced entirely

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out of the reach of the occupants. They could do an awful lot of this, simply.

I have seen it over and over again, people cooperating, working together, you see, among themselves, you see, to make their own repairs.

The CHAIRMAN. The Federal Government won't do a very good job on this whole matter, regardless of how little or how much money they appropriate, until the local people want to clean it up.

Monsignor O'GRADY. The same is true of all areas. The fact that you can send in a few specialists-if you could get a few crusaders here and there in local cities. What I have been trying to do in Chicago is to get the different church groups together, locally.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I think the church groups have fallen down plenty on the job.

Monsignor O'GRADY. There is some evidence of hope.

The CHAIRMAN. I know. But the churches themselves, if they would talk about it and preach about it, and organize it, they could do a lot.

Monsignor O'GRADY. I agree with you. That is what I have been trying to do. I have been trying to stimulate them into that interest, and I have been trying to stimulate all the groups. My brethren of other churches, too. I want to see them all work together. And in all of these things we are talking about, the development of the American community gets down to that. It is what type of neighborhoods are people going to live in.

The CHAIRMAN. We ought to have at least 2 periods in every year, or at least 1 week or 2 weeks, which we would call cleanup and paintup week. If everybody would clean up and paint and pick up, you would be surprised at what could be done.

Monsignor O'GRADY. Don't you think there is some way that at least the Federal Government can give an example of better coordination among its own activities? Now, these various divisions of the housing situation might as well be a thousand miles apart, you see. They go into a city and one group says one thing to the city officials, and another group says another thing.

Now, it ought to be possible for them to get on speaking terms, the housing group around this town, with the public roads people. They ought to be in agreement.

The CHAIRMAN. I agree with you.

Monsignor O'GRADY. Now, if we could have that example on the part of the Government, of coordination among its own forces, I think that is the biggest challenge that you people of this administration have at the present time. To bring these various people together and have them recognize, too-if they would only recognize what these private groups can do, and be properly humble about it, and not assume that they have got all the answers to all the problems of life. I think Government people should properly be humble about their own limitations.

But, I agree that the churches have a great challenge in this field, and they are interested in family life, and you can't have family life in a disorganized neighborhood, you see. That is what you have got in these neighborhoods. You have got this organization. All these things that we say housing is going to solve. A better house is useful;

it is a help. But if you blight that house again in a very short time, as you are liable to, and you keep on spreading blight, our cities are going to become a new wilderness.

I pointed to that many times in St. Louis, that all the area in downtown St. Louis is threatened, and I don't think the present plan is going to solve it. I pointed that out publicly. Their present plan for redevelopment is not going to solve that problem. The people in that area have to become interested. I have talked about that from the housetops in St. Louis, and I am going to keep on, and I have to keep on reminding all of the groups that this is not just a matter for experts; that is a problem of all our life. We have the same thing when we talk about cleaning up these neighborhoods, cleaning up juvenile delinquency and crime and all that sort of thing. It is associated with disorganization about life, about neighborhoods.

The CHAIRMAN. You are doing an excellent job, and we appreciate it, and we certainly appreciate your testimony this morning. Thank you very much.

We will now recess until 10 o'clock on Monday, March 22, when our witnesses will be the National Savings and Loan League, the American Hotel Association, William T. Wallace, American Institute of Planners, American Veterans Committee, and the National Federation of Settlement and Neighborhood Centers.

We will now recess unless there is objection by someone.

(Whereupon, at 12:20 p. m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a. m., Monday, March 22, 1954.)