Omaha daily bee., 1917-02-16
OH, Mr.. LANDLORD!
HAVE SOME MERCY
Senate Bill Would Make Delin.
quent Tenant Mere Vassal
of Angry Owner.
IS sTREHLoW BEHIND IT?

Your boots, your overcoat, your
piano, and even the potatoes that
grow in your garden may be taken
from you on very short notice by the
landlord if you get in arrears with
your rent, providing the bill now in
the state senate is passed.
A slow awakening has just begun
to occur on this bill. It was rather
slyly handled, so that it has received
little publicity.
While Senators c. E. Samuelson Of
Hildreth and w. Soost of Magnet in
troduced the measure and are taking
the responsibility for it, it is coming
to be well understood that it was
reallyI fathered by Senator r. c.
Strehlow of Omaha, who is him.
self landlord and owner Of the
Strehlow apartments in Omaha.
The bill would make delinquency
in rent chattel mortgage forthwith
on all personal property on the
premises. Yes, and it would include
crops growing, or in the bins of the
granary. 1t would include practically
everything that is loose and movable,
which has not standing against 1t a
prior lien of record
How 1t Might Work.
Thus the farmer paying cash rent
would have to stand by and see his
grain hauled off and his horses led
away by the landlord if he hadn't the
ready cash to meet the rent bill the
very day it became due.
Thus the retailer who sends out
$50 bill of furniture to a home. takes
a $40 payment down and agrees to
take the rest in monthly ipstallments
would see his furniture hauled away
from the customers home if the GUS
toner became delinquent in his house
rent.
For the landlords would grab. every
thing in sight in accordance with the
provisions of this bill. In England a
law such as this prevails, and persons
are afraid to- loan wagon or fiddle
to a neighbor over night, tearing that
he may be delinquent in his rent to
such an extent that the landlord will
come and sweep the place clean of
everything.
Gunshoe Jobbery.
So quietly have the senators worked
with this bill that the farmers
throughout the state have not discov-
cred their corn was in danger of be-
ing shucked out of the field by the
landlord on a moments iptice. So
silently have they worked that the re-
tailers did not know bill of goods
they send out on credit to renter
may be snapped up by the landlord
the moment it reaches the premises.
So slyly have they worked that the
coal man did not know the coal he
sends out on credit to a renter is apt
to be shoveled out of the renters
cellar and hauled off by the landlord;
and the jeweler doing a credit bust
ness did not realize that the diamonds
he sells on credit might be adjoining
the fingers of his customers landlord
before they have the price tag fairly
removed.
That Mighty Howl.
Some of the merchants throughout
the state and in Omaha only recently
discovered the bill was in existence.
They howled. When the farmers dis
covered it, they howled. The howl
was general, except from the land
lords.
Then a kind of understanding was
reached. 1t was understood, or at
least the retailers in Omaha under
stood from Senator Strehlow, that
there was to be hearing on the bill
before it should be reported out of
the committee on miscellaneous. So
they rested. A few days ago, Secre-
tary Metcalfe of the Associated Re-
tailers of Omaha wrote to Lincoln to
know more about this hearing and
learned, to his surprise, that the bill
had been quietly reported out of the
committee and no hearing was ever
called.
The retailers are alarmed over the
secret progress the bill is making and
will now protest it to the end. They
are hoping to interest the farmers
throughout the state to oppose it also,
on account of the direct effect it
would have on the renter.