Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-11-12
TELL Of PARL|N
HOUSING CASE.
Letter of AssembIyman- Elect
Peterson Brings a Reply
From Manager of Plant.

Edward j. Peterson. assembly,
man elect, during the campaign just
closed, found during a canvass of
the voters in the vicinity of Parlin q
number of vacant houses on the +. l..
DUPONT de Nemours 81 Company
property which might be used TO
house families who due to the short
age of houses in the county were
looking for homes. He addressed a
communication to the company con-
corning The matter, which was an
| swered by the concern Mr.. Peter
sons letter follows:
Perth Amboy. N. J..
Oct. 81, 1920.
"E. I. DUPONT de Nemours &c Co,
"Pariin. New Jersey.
"Gentlemen:-
Being a candidate in the CAM
paign now closing l have had an OPP
%portunity to cover almost every Sec
ton of the county during the past
several weeks and it has come to my
notice that there are a number of
vacant houses opposite your plants
at Parlin which are constantly being
added due to the fact that you are
day after day reducing the forces In
your plant. l understand that an m
ployee must move as soon as possible
after he has been laid off and hav-
ing received information from sour
ces which i believe to be reliable to
the effect that your plant has almost
been closed, an abundance of moe
| cupied houses may be expected in a
very short time.
"Inasmuch as the housing situa-
ton is one of the gravest problems
facing the people of this state at
this time would ii not be possible for
your firm to give deep consideration
to the plan of renting these proper
ties to residents of this section of
the state who are at the present time
either paying enormous prices for
furnished rooms or living grouped
together under unsanitary condi-
tons?
"Your firm could do no better act
for the community and I have no
doubt as to the ability to secure ten
ants because the bus lines will con-
tinue to pass the property referred
to regardless of the number of men
employed in the vicinity.
yours truly.
EDWARD J.. PETERSON"
The DUPONT letter fellows:
November 10. 1920.
"Mr. Edward j. Peterson,
1901 Market ST.,
Perth Amboy, N. j.
Dear Sir:
I'VE acknowledge receipt of your
letter of October 31st regarding the
housing situation at Parlin. We are
at a loss to understand how anyone
could get the impression that we
have a large number of vacant
houses.
The total number of completed
80 900 - Il
houses which at the signing of the
Armistice were only partially finish
ed. There were an additional Q un-
completed houses at that time which
have since been completed and our
program is. of course, to finish up
the remaining IL. In the group of
buildings to which you especially
refer opposite the plant, all of the
completed Gus are occupied with
the exception of 2 which were re-
Gently vacated and have been re-let.
and one which is vacant and will
probably be assigned to a workman
within a hor time. OF the remain
Ing ouses owned by us 4 are vacant,
two of which have been let and the
other two will be rented soon. We
are faced with a serious shortage of
houses ourselves and this would be
u uc, cNtn II We were HOT CO1SlTuCl-
ing an addition to our factory.
"As we have known that we have
fewer houses than needed to house
our own men. we have requested a
few men who have left the employ of
the company to seek other houses as
soon as possible. but in no cases
have men been forced out of a house
but have been allowed to occupy
their houses until they could find
another.
1.-The facts regarding our reduc-
ton in force are as follows: While
the plant is running approximately
so per cent. capacity. only a few men
have been discharged, in fact our
average for the year has not de-
creased and we have more men than