Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-07-05
BUILDING ACTIVITY IS
BEGINNING To SHOW
THROUGHOUT NATION
BY HARDEN CoLFAx
UJeaSed Wire Service to The Journal.)



Copyright 1929
WASHINGTON, July 2.-Building
construction, key log in the business
jam, appears to labor department Of
ficials about to move.
Strong currents, great and grow
ing, moving so far under the surface
as to be unseen to the casual OBJ
server, give cause for hope that the
lethaTgy in building ere long will be
replaced by activity. Material costs
are coming down and while they may
not have reached bottom. they are
now reported far below peak; labor
is debating and signs are multiply
ing that the deadlock in many great
centers is wearing itself to slow
finish; and back Of both these i'm
pcrtant factors is the ever growing
need for homes to keep pace with the
countrys growth in population.
Labor department officials have as
many agents in the storm centers or
building trade troubles as the de-
partments somewhat scanty appro
priation will permit and these agents
have reported back within the past
week that the outlook is brighte4 for
a resumption Of business in grad
ually increasing scale than it has
been at any time this year.
Their reports are checked by re-
ports to the federal reserve board
which show that building permits
were taken out during May for more
than $250,0O0,000 in new construc-
ton throughout the nation. AS
whole this compares favorably with
April. Were the rate maintained 1t
would meal a hree-billion-a-year
program. To catch up with normal
the United Safes needs somewhere
between ten and twenty billions of
dollars worth of new buildings.
Prosperity to Follow
When building construction re-
wives, in the belief of the Chamber
of Commerce of the United States
general prosperity will revive. Ac-
ton industry represents an invest
ment of seventy-seven billion dollars;
or 27 per cent of our national
wealth; 80 per cent of all ron ore;
copper, zinc and lead mined are used
in construction; one billion dollars
is paid out annually in normal times
to a million workers engaged direct
ly, and eleven million men and Wom-
en- derive their living directly or in
directly from the Industry twenty
five per cent of all railway freight
is construction materials.
For those and other equally potent
reasons labor department officials re-
gard building construction as the
key log in the business jam. Release
it, they believe, and Immediately the
large number of dependent and al
lied Industries will move with it;
hundreds of thousands of men now
idle will be given work; millions now
living in cramped and often tnsanl-
tary quarters will be afforded relief
the railroads will greatly increase
their revenues and thus be enabled to
place orders in other lines now more
or less dormant 'and the little lcaV-
en- will 1eaven the whole.
Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland,
Pittsburg, New England. suburban
New York, New Jersey, Kansas CITY
these and many other large centeTs
Of population have been racked by
industry. Some of these centers
have solved their problem, at least
temporarily, and men are back at
work; others still are dislocated. 1t
is in the latter class thac the chef
symptoms of revival are shown. In
there is coming a day soon when
both sides will get together and
work.
Cost Still Eigk
1T now costs according to an au-
thority in the department Of COM
merce about 80 per cent more to put
up a home than it cost in pre-War
days. In other words, a mouest little
home that would have cost $4,000 to
erect in pre-war times, now costs
about $4,000. The materials, this au-
thority claims, are about 80 per cen,
higher than they were and the labor
100 per cent. In figuring the labor
costs, lowered efficiency is taken
into consideration. for wages are not
double the pre-war figures.
But in 1920, that same $5,OOO-pre-
war-home would have cost $4,000. A
total of $4,000 has been clipped from
the peak. Material men say their
products are selling now at virtually
no profit and labor claims that 1T
has gone further back toward norm
al than materials costs.
John II. Donlin, president of tha
building trades department of the
American Federation of Labor, has
this to say:
Now is the time to build. 1t can
be done more expediently and cheap
er now than in the recent past or the
near future"