in their decision, I assume, the thinking of the American people as to this entire matter, and perhaps the people will have decided, at least for the time being, within the next week, what the decision of this present Congress will be. You will decide pretty much what the people of the United States are going to do about this serious housing problem for the underprivileged groups within this next week. We have had a great many groups interested in this legislation. I think nearly all the prominent national church organizations have been committed to this legislation. All the large groups of women in the United States have been committed to it. I think all these organizations are quite conservative at least those of them with which I have been associated. So I feel very strongly that this section of the bill, this public housing section of the bill-I know it is the most controversial section of this entire bill. I have noticed in the bill, as it points its objectives, that one of them is slum clearance, and urban redevelopment. There is a section of the bill dealing with that. There is no controversy whatsoever, apparently, in regard to redevelopment. In regard to the clearing of slums, all the cities believe that their slums must be cleared up. You cannot permit cities to keep on deteriorating at the center and extending their areas without limit. I think it is inevitable that the cities are going to have to rebuild their slums and tear down those slums. There does not seem to be any question about that. But what to do with the people in the slums? That is the big question. That is still the question before this committee. As I gather, it is the basic question before this committee. I feel that in social security we have come to regard a part of the relief burden of the United States as a national problem. We are contributing to old-age assistance large sums of money. I happen to be a pioneer in that movement for the care of the aged. The Federal Government has been in that field very heavily. We did not keep on saying, in 1935, "Turn it back to the States. Why do the States not handle it?" For a long time, of course, we said the States should handle it. In the beginning, of course, there was a real question. I remember when I was with the Ohio commission studying that problem, I talked to former Governor Cox, and I suggested the State might find $100,000 to study that problem. He said, "You had better turn it back to the cities and counties. I do not see how the State could find $100,000 for that." And I suppose Ohio is now spending several million dollars on it. That is the basic issue, as I see it, before the committee at the present time. I think this problem has to be faced as a national problem. There seems to be no question about the basic problem itself. There is no question about clearing the slums and redeveloping our cities. That is not in controversy. But the question is: How are we going to meet this problem of providing housing for those who cannot pay economic rents? I am still hearing a good deal, behind the sets, about a needs test. I have worked on needs tests a good deal throughout my life. As secretary of the Catholic Charities, I have had to deal with needs tests, I have had to administer agencies that had to serve people on the basis of need. I hear a good deal about taking care of the neediest cases, and I have tried at times to figure how we could do it. We are thinking about this, remember, as a temporary thing, as temporary 75674-48- -38 housing, for people in low-income groups, until such time as they are able to pay economic rents. We want to build them up. I wonder how a community housing project, housing all relief families, and the very neediest of relief families, how you would build people up in such a community is past me. I might as well talk about reforming delinquents in our present institutions for delinquents. That makes them still more delinquent. That is what is really happening in fact. So I look on housing as I look on old-age pensions, workmen's compensation, social security. It is a benefit administered on the basis of a general principle. If a man falls into a certain income category, I want to keep him out of the relief category. Because I know from my experience with relief families that it is pretty difficult to lift them out of the relief category once they get into it. I do not figure these folks in housing, even at low-income groups, as belonging entirely, or even the majority of them, belonging to the relief category. I am figuring them as people I am trying to keep out of the relief category so that I can prepare them for home ownership. I would like to keep talking about this thing from the standpoint of preparing for home ownership. And I would like to see a little more discussion, amongst these groups of people discussing these problems now, all these representatives of our great real-estate interests and I am sure they are all fine people-I would like to see I am sure. All men, in their better moments, want to do the right them concentrate on that problem. They want to do the right thing, anyhow. We all do, I guess. Mr. TALLE. Perhaps the trouble is there are not enough of those moments. Monsignor O'GRADY. Perhaps that is so, Congressman Talle. But I am sure that we do want to help people to own their own homes in the long run. That is America's ideal, that is the ideal of our people, to own their own homes as soon as they can. And we must do everything possible to prepare them for the ownership of homes. I am not pessimistic by any means. I do not see a new Home Owners' Loan Corporation on the horizon. I hope not. I hope we never reach that type of situation again. Yet I have a kind of feeling that the houses I see all around the country which were built under title VI, I have a great question whether people who are earning $50 a week, or veterans, for example, can hold onto those houses and what is going to happen to them in the next 5 to 10 years, what is going to happen to those mortgages. I am greatly concerned about that. People around here tell me about this $150,000,000 for public housing. I am wondering what we are taking on in this continuing of title VI. I am just wondering all the time whether or not we are thinking about it from a purely speculative angle of an immediate profit for certain people, whether there is not too much thinking along those lines, and whether or not it is really preparing us for home ownership, which again, I say, should be our motto. Home ownership is my motto, and I wonder whether or not the houses which we are erecting under title VI are, at the present time—and it is the only title being used, practically-is a good thing. The Federal Housing Administration, of course, is not being used very extensively outside of title VI. I think that is really a serious problem. I have a second objective. Besides taking care of the needs of lowincome families, which I think are real needs-and I think we must continue that crusade in order to find some method of taking care of these underprivileged groups-still I have another objective. I would like to see this committee give more thought to the matter of cooperatives. On that point I want to quote from a statement made by a prominent member of this committee at one time. He told a small group of people, in regard to an investigation which he, as a member of a committee, had made in Europe: "The committee would be unanimous in saying that there is no place in Europe where they discovered housing equal to that which we had in the United States except in Sweden." Then he said, "I cannot understand why we cannot have in the United States these nice apartment houses and other housing developments that they have in Sweden." Immediately another member of the Congress remarked that this was due to the cooperatives in Sweden. The member of this committee who had presented the opinion replied, "Yes, but the Government also had something to do with it." I think the Government ought to have something to do with cooperatives, and I think we need a little bit of a change in mentality on the part of our Government agencies who are dealing with housing in regard to this whole question of cooperatives. I think cooperatives are one of our basic hopes in the development of a program for the middle income groups. Perhaps in time, as they have done in other countries, as they have done in Nova Scotia, as they have done in Sweden, and Denmark, perhaps they will reach down more and more into these low income groups. But cooperatives need to be fostered. And I think instead of being fostered at the present time they are being discouraged. I find groups around the country which would like to develop some cooperative housing at the present time, but they are not getting much help or encouragement from the committee. I do not think that this bill, in its present form, is going to do the trick. I think it is concentrated too much on the financial end. We will loan them money. We have a 95 percent guarantee. I do not think that is sufficient to meet this important problem. Cooperatives need to be fostered. I saw some cooperative stores in Detroit the other day which are being operated by the United Automobile Workers, and I think they are doing a good job. And the United Automobile Workers would like to go into cooperative housing. I have been interested, for instance, in a project in South Bend, Ind. But even they have not been getting much encouragement. I do not find them getting much encouragement from Government anywhere. I think there ought to be a special division in the Federal Housing Administration which would concentrate on encouraging cooperatives. I think it has to develop gradually. Sometimes you begin with a credit union. Before you start a large housing project, there are other steps. A cooperative is something that has to be nurtured. It is the spirit. It is not just mechanical. There is no profit motive. You have to get people who are bound together by common interests, people with proper leadership. I think we are beginning to get a lot of that kind of thing in our American neighborhoods. I have seen them grow up. I was just talking to my own Congressman about that matter in a situation we are having on the South Side in Omaha. I would like to get that group into the field of cooperatives and I intend to encourage them to get into the field of cooperative housing, as well as other groups throughout the country. But I think we ought to get a lift from the Government in Washington, and I think this section of the bill needs more consideration on the part of the committee. That is one suggestion that I have to present to the committee. I think it is a matter that should be explored. Finally, I want to refer briefly to this matter of farm housing, That is a problem in which I have been interested throughout the years. I noticed one reference yesterday to control over people and all that sort of thing. I do not like control any more than anybody else does. I do not like Federal control over our lives. But when you are working in a farm economy, when you think about a house in a farm economy, you think of it as part of the capital equipment of the farmer. His living quarters are a part of his equipment. Moreover, when you think of a farm economy, you try to get as far away from the relief concept as possible. You try to get people to help themselves. Of course, that should be our objective in all our approach to these social problems, to get people to help themselves. But when you talk about improving the farmers' housing, you cannot take it as an isolated thing. You have got to take it as a part of his whole program. We think about this, of course, with respect to marginal farming largely. I did not enter too much into the discussion of this matter. I have not recently had a chance to discuss it with the people in agriculture, but I know the farm picture of the marginal farmers pretty well. I have probably seen as many marginal farm workers as anybody else, and I have seen sharecroppers all over the country. Therefore, I think this section of the bill can satisfy a rather useful purpose, but it has to be worked out as a part of a farm plan. In other words, you just do not go in and look at the marginal farmer's house-he may have poor housing now, but just helping him to build a house or improve a house does not meet his problem. There may be a whole question there. He may be in a one-crop economy. His children may be undernourished because he does not have sufficient food. You need to discuss with him when he comes to you voluntarily, in order to participate in this program, his whole farm program. That is the type of thing that is being done, as I understand it, at the present time, under the Farm Home Administration. It is the type of thing that is being done under the Jones-Bankhead bill. There we are getting over toward the concept of ownership by the farmer of his land, and I assume that the same concept would be embodied in this. That is, that there would be an opportunity for him reaching out toward ownership of his land also, and that that would be kept in mind in planning for him. I assume that that would be made part of the present Farm Home program, so that it would be closely coordinated with the work of the farm program, aimed at uplifting the very large number of farmers in the marginal group. Of course, Congressman Talle may say that he does not have any marginal farmers in Iowa. I think you have quite a few of them in southwestern Iowa, at least in certain sections. Mr. TALLE. Thank you for paying such a fine tribute to northeastern Iowa. Monsignor O'GRADY. Oh, that is the heart of the land. Mr. BUFFETT. You are not going back on your own State, are you? Monsignor O'GRADY. Oh, no; I stand up for my own State, too, Congressman Buffett. I think I have to stick by Nebraska. Eastern Nebraska has very good land. I have talked to so many Des Moines registered people in Iowa that I think they have had a great deal to do with my information. But I think this section of the bill could play a very important part. A good deal depends, of course, on administration. All these measures depend a great deal on administration. Those of us who have watched. this situation in Washington for years know very well that getting a piece of legislation is one thing, getting good administration of it is a little bit different. It is just not the easiest thing in the world. But our Department of Agriculture, on the whole, I think, has had a pretty good record. I have noticed a very interesting thing here, too, about the use of the committees. There is a great deal more flexibility in working with different groups. Of course, you do get that in our whole rural economy. I think we ought eventually to get more of it in the cities, greater participation of citizens in all the programs. That is one of the other reasons why I am so interested in cooperatives. You have got to get people working together for their own good, rather than sitting back and having the Government take care of the whole thing. I would regard these things as essentially transitional, just as I regard any form of relief as a transitional thing, a very temporary thing for the ordinary citizen. I want to go over more and more toward a system under which the individual who happens to have had hard luck, low income conditions, under which he cannot meet the ordinary needs of life, will be assisted so that he may be given an opportunity to become self-sustaining, and not just remain as a dependent for a long period of time. I want to conclude by saying that I am associated with a very large number of respectable citizens throughout the country who are interested in this housing program. We are not interested in undermining private initiative. I think we are interested in buildng up private initiative in the United States. I know that is my conviction, my sincere conviction. I do not want to do anything that would hinder private initiative. I would like to see more done by private initiative. Of course, anybody who looks at this picture would like to see an improvement in this housing program. We need more houses. Of the 900,000 houses that we have had in the last year, too many of themand I do not need to go into it, I am sure Mr. Foley has given you all the statistics, and I am sure you have gotten the prices of these housestoo many of them do not meet the needs of cur middle- and low-income groups. We have been associated, we have been struggling together. We are not rich people. We do not have as much money as some of our friends on the other side of the fence, but we keep on struggling and we are trying to do the very best we can to present our case to the people of the United States. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Monsignor O'Grady. Are there questions? Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Smith. |