The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1920-07-13
s0LONS UNC0NCERNED
ABOUT RENT PROFHEERs
r,r QUESTION APPEARS TO BE
ovERsHADOWED BY BAD CON-
n,TIoN OF STATES FINANCES.
PROFILE A GIGANTIC ONE

Decent Mass Meeting Did Not Impress
Members of Either House or Sem
ate Rank Profteering of the Rot
tenest Sort Is Charged.
ATLANTA.-What the Georgia
legislature can or will do to relieve
tbe housing situation in this state is
probIem as gigantic as the solu-
ton of the financial ENHANCEMENT the
state has gotten itself into.
Though the mass meeting assem-
HE'D nv John A. Manget in Atlanta
was thoroughly sincere assemblage
and a revelation in the seriousness
of the picture presented. there has
NOT been the slightest indication that
it impressed the Georgia legislature.
If either member of the house or
the senate made reference of any
kind to it since the mass meeting that
reference was so inaudible it has not
been heard. So far as can be learn
ed nobody in either house has con-
cerned himself with the matter to the
extent of seeking to draw or have
drawn any form of legislation to be
offered, and certainly there has been
nothing in the nature of concerted
action in response to the ''peaceable
assemblage" and its petition by word
of mouth and by demonstration to
the law-making body of the state.
Woman Gives Warning.
Captain Reba Crawford. the little
Salvation Army lassie who made
really the most touching speech in the
big mass meeting, closed her talk
with an injunction to the Georgia leg
stature to watch its step, else the
gathering red cloud which she believ-
ed she can distinguish in the red dawn
Of a tomorrow will sweep into this
country. "And them" she said, "there
will be no legislature left to correct
these troubles; there will be nothing
but trouble for, gentlemen, tell you
! the greatest breeder of bolshevism we
have in our great country today is
Rounded on this very thing which the
#poor people of Georgia-those people
Awho are nearer to my heart than all
bother humanity because they can't
&help themselves-are appealing to
Nyou to correct"
If the mass meeting accomplished
3 nothing else in the economic life of
Georgia it will have done one thing;
! it has put the authorities of the state
fairly on notice that a seriousness is
abroad in the land which threatens to
become pestillence if it is not soon
stopped.
Case after case was stated in the
mass meeting, from conditions in At
anta, of rankest profteering of the
rottenest sort by owners of tenant
property. One instance after anoth-
err was cited of charges being levied
on renters sufficiently large to equal
! in four years the inflated actual mar
ket values of the property occupied
enough to cover fully in two years
the value at which the actual proper
] ty is given in return for taxation.
One house of fourteen rooms was
shown to have so increased in rental
charge this year over one year ago
that the income from it will over pay
its value in less than four years, and
yet leave the owner net profit to
the side. For the balance of his life
time all his income from that piece
of property will be 'velvet."
Three Hundred Per Cent Increase.
Instance after instance was cited
of increases in Atlanta rents ranging
between 200 and 800 per cent in the
past three years. There have been
practically no complaints in those
countless cases of increase ranging
between 35 and SO per cent, but these
nave been very few. The larger num-
Der of them fit with one of the illus
tratlons wherein a tenant two years
ago was paying $35 per month for
piece of property which the landlord
now holds for rental after Septem-
Der l of sos per month, with no i'm
proyement or change.
The condition among the negroes
Of Atlanta as presented by the Wheat
Street Baptist preacher for his race
Is even worse than among the white
people. So terrific has become the
pressure on that class of property
mat, as Rev. P. J. Bryant put it to
tne mass meeting, the negroes can't
pay the rents demanded of them and
stay honest"
And with all this the condition in
Atlanta is not much worse than that
represented from the balance of Geor-
gla-merely there is more of it here.