The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-09-19
Frederic E5askin's Letter
The Boil Rent Las0.

person. He was laughed at. Things
simply aren't done that way. The
method OF government is 10 take
the longest road and go to sleep on
the way.
You can't blame the justices of
the supreme court. They are among
the hardest working men in The
country. The system which pro-
vides that a law may be put into
effect before IT has been decided
whether il is valid or not, is 70
blame.
The FIVE justices who upheld the
rent act undoubtedly did as much
"a it was possible TO do at that late
date toward relieving an almost in
tolerable condition. Over 4.OOo
cases have been filed with the rent
commission. Over 5000 OF them
have been disposed of. In nearly a
thousand cases rents have been re-
duced. In over 500 cases adjust @
ments have been reached by sim
ply bringing the parties together
and making them talk it over. The
commission has not functioned per-
fectly, OF course. In some cases
lecting from the tenant more rent
than the commission allowed. By
the terms of the renewed act the
commission is provided with a spe-
cial attorney to prosecute such
cases.
The Legal bubble.
II the upholding judges saved
the day for many tenant, the dis
senting judges undoubtedly made
the best argument on the constitu-
ton. They had simply to point out
that the constitution provides that
you cannot take life, liberty or
property without due process OF
law, and that property cannot be
taken even for public use without
compensation. This act, in effect,
took a mans property out of his
hands for private use without due
process of law.
The judges who upheld the law
took their stand chiefly on two
grounds. In the first place they
said: This is an emergency meas
ure." OF course, you can justify
nearly anything on that ground
after q fashion. The war had ere
ated a rent emergency all over the
country, and a national rent COM
mission would have been the log
ical thing 1t had created an equal
~ grave emergency with regard to
food, clothing and every other
necessity of life. Why not emer-
gency price-fNng commissions to
regulate the distribution of all
these things?
In the second place, the justices
held that if a man can be prohib-
tied by law from building a house
above a certain height on his prop
erty. there is no reason why he
should not be prohibited from
charging more than a certain rent.
If he cannot raise the roof too high,
why let him raise the rent too
high? The analogy is more ingen-
ious than sound. The rights in
volved are altogether different
One thing which our constitution
makes clear about all others is thdt
the men who wrote 1t intended that
private property should be forever
sacred in the United States. That
meant that a man should have the
right to do what he pleased with
his own possessions, and that he
should be allowed to sell them and
rent them for as much as he could
get, If the tenant didn't like it,
let him go somewhere else. George
himself was landlord
On a large scale. He charged as
much as he could get and made the
tenant pay it. If he could hear Of
this rent commission operating IN
the town of his name, he woutd
kick the lid off his coffin.
But what, after all, is a const;tC-
ton among emergencies? why
worry about a constitution Wnlcn
contains both Patrick Henry's Dill
Of rights and Mr.. Wheeler's famous
18th amendment? That is the prac-
teal question, never stated, which
lies back of many laws. The enc
mics of the rent law call it pateT-
nalism and state socialism. 1t is.
lust as paternalistic as the
corn laws of the Gracci were II
is lust as much state socialism as
l municipal dining hall would he,
and as our free lunches for school
children are Nevertheless, IL Is
LOO per cent american, because II
s a practical makeshift with which
10 meet an emergency. II is by
and compromises that
we keep the creaking machinery OF
our government going. We have
never faced the logic of economic
and political principle. Politicians
get themselves elected by talking
about the principles OF the fathers
and hold their jobs and keep the
by breaking them. The
Ball act is a characteristic fracture,