The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-10-16
ROOM SEEKERS IN WASHINGTON ARE
 NOW ATTAINING POET|CAL HEIGHTS s
Crowded Conditions in National Capitol Bring Forth Amusing Advertisements in Daily Papers Under heath It All Is the Seriousness of Finding Proper Places for Essential War Workers

Washington, Oct. 15-The South ern constituent, who some three years aao, rejected a hundred-dollar-a- month job here in the capital-with- out even going to work at it-because he considered the cost of living too high, must have been man of pro phetic vision. He created almost national sensation among job hunt CTS; politically, he was curiosity. Sixteen years, a Democrat in the wilderness, with Republicans in all the jobs, his party came into power. His Congressman paid back the years of loyalty with an appointment. But the man took one look at Washing l ton and its living prices and went back to Georgia on the first train. One is constrained to wonder what 1 he would do in Washington now. 1 Much has been written and said of | the congested conditions in war-busy Washington. Government officials whose task it is to bring in war work CTS have been eager not to have the reports of crowding drive away hun dreds of folks badly needed. In fact they have made every effort through organization of aids to newcomers to find them homes. On the other hand, real estate agents and others 'besieged by waves of homeless new corners actually have pleaded to have the country informed that there is no more room.
 A city which, three years ago, was estimated as having five thousand va
 cant houses and three thousand va
 cant apartments, now has not sin
 gle vacant one The search for homes
 has extended to all the suburbs, where
 cottages have trebled in price. The 1 crowded condition of hotels ant , boarding houses, every traveller knows for himself One of them ha! , aptly remarked that on coming tc
 Washington on business one has tC
 engage a place In / Baltimore ol 1 Philadelphia to sleep.
 7 Soldiers in uniform have been pu , to making house to house can IS
 asking the occupants to double up
 as a patriotic duty and take in va e worker Absentee householders a having large domains which the. I have been accustomed to visit once ; I. year, have in some cases feared tha
 the premises would be commander = ed by the government and hurriedlJ
 have returned, to keep their drawin.
 rooms from being converted int
 dormitories.
 One may well imagine that wher
 there is so much difficulty in, housing
 so many people, there is equal troubl
 ir feeding them. Cafes and cafe
 terias have sprung up about the cit
 like mushrooms it is no common
 sight to see 8 line of war worker standing in line outside restaurant waiting for a chance to spend none inside-just like a line of ticket buy CTS before a theatre box office. Nobody seems to want to take in woman war worker. The few wh ] advertise rooms, prefer gentlemen
 or officers The discriminatio hurts the girl war workers feeling bu ,' has no practical result. As matte :, of fact the gentlemen" has just a ', lively time getting a room.
 l' Some one has estimated that tn :, ; war workers are fiocking into the cit Y at the rate of 500 a day and deparr ing at the rate of 300 a day, discoul |. aged, homeless, sometimes foodles