The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-06-16
RENT PROF|TEER
HINDER WAR WORK
IN I'LL SECTIONS

4 III I'LL OGO
| Washington, June IA condition
| full Of menace to the successful driving
forward of the nations war-job is rap
| idly maturing.
1t is rent profiteering. The govern
ment is face to face with the Ground
Hog" The ground hog is reaching out
to interpose his greedy snout between
| the people and their war-work.
| Unless sharp, drastic, and rapid ac-
ton is taken by the national govern
ment the few people who own the
places where the many people must
live will sabotage the job Of winning
| the war.
| Information coming to the Elmer
gency Fleet Corporation, the War Hous
| ing Bureau, the War Department. and
other government offices shows that
| men and women doing war work-soi-
der, munitions worker, shipbuilder,
executive official. Liberty Bond buyer,
and Red Cross subscriber-everybod
who must pay rent for place to live,
are being forced or will shortly be
forced by shortage Of houses, to slick
to pay the landlords more than they
can stand.
In the large Industrial towns the
situation is acute. There. where
! large numbers of people live in apart
ment or tenement houses, and where
yearly leases run from Oct. 4, landlords
are preparing to add from 10 to 80 i-3
and in some cases so per cent to the
rents OF such living places.
Not only the mechanic and wage
Garner is feeling the burden. The
| salaried man whose wage has not been
increased to keep pace with the rising
cost of living, is being pinched by the
| landlord.
In New York, practically every lease
Which expires Sept. 80 Of this year will
be renewed only at an increase in rem
tai of from So up per month. This
| means from Is to 30 per cent increase.
A typical case of the way landlords
are raising rents on workers in the
New York shipbuilding district is oas
in which Tompkinsville (Staten
land profiteer boosted the rent Of a
mechanic from s23 to $50. This land.
lord is making something like an ex-
ira profit of 500 or $40 year in excess
OF his increase of taxes on this prop
erty.
Here in the District Of Columbia the
landlords have pushed profiteering to
sueI an outrageous extent that Con-
gress has adopted resolution forbid
ding landlords to dispossess tenants so
long as they continue to pay their rent
at the agreed rate; and a much more
drastic piece of legislation-the John
son-Pomerene BILLS now ready for
conference between the House and Sem
ate. When passed it will limit the
amount of rent that a landlord may
collect to the sum he was getting in
the pre@war period of 1917. plus
small allowance for increased costs.
Complaints of unbridled profiteering
continue to come to the War Depart
ment from army men who are forced
TO make their homes near army posts
and environments.
At Chillicothe, o., the site OF one cam
Torment, the situation has become so
serious that the general in command
has threatened to invoke the arbitrary
power OF the military to fix rents for
soldiers and officers homes.
4 typical case in that city is that
OF young officer of means who is
Low raying $500 for house which two
years ago could not be rented at $50
a month. ~
This condition exists near all army
posts ard camps.
tOSli,
lords have taken advantage of the need
OF the government for a small army OF
skilled men, and up the price.
An investigation at Orange, Texas in
the Sabine River shipbuilding district,
shows that three-room house that in
19i6 the owners rented at 81 a month,
is now rented fer Si4. A five-room
hous' that in ioi5 was let at Sf4 a
month, now brings S35. Hastily con
structed shacks ere rented for SIP
few months ago, but have now been
jumped te ST.,
en-dollar-a-month houses are now
$50, and In some cases more, and negro
shacks that might formerly be had at
S3 bring now $3.50 a month.
In the Seattle shipbuilding district
the Seattle Metal Trades Council, rep
resenting $4,000 shipyard workers,
threatened rent strike against profit
teering, which in some cases reached
6S % per cent.
In Brooklyn and Bronx districts of
New York, rent strikes are in progress
now
The federal government has ample
funds and is rushing the work of con-
struction of new houses to meet the
shortage in industrial eenters where
war work is going on. but in the mean
time this vital work is hampered and
viii be seriously endangered by the
landlords and owners who see a chance
to make a small fortune out of the
cCuntry's necessities