Evening star., 1925-01-03
Wanted: A Peace of Justice,

A fervent new years hope of the
capital community is that the Presi-
dent and Congress will put an end, by
peace of justice, to the six-years war
OF retaliation between group of
landlords and a group of tenants
which has ragged to the injury of the
reputation and vital interests of Wash.
ington.
Congress is assembling while the
Christmas spirit of peace and good
will still permeates the atmosphere.
In the spirit of the season, the land.
lords and tenants of the District
should be brought together to ne
gottate quickly a peace without vic
tory, a peace Of justice, Of honor and
of public spirit, a peace that will pro-
tect and promote Washington's well
fare.
The influx of more than 100 900 war
workers into Washington without
governmental preparation for their
reception upset the local housing
market. The demand for comfortable
housing far exceeded the supply. A
competition resulted. Prices shot up,
and some landlords took advantage
of the opportunity to profiteer. In
some cases they doubled or tripled
the normal rental, to the injury of the
underpaid Government employees of
small means who could not meet the
extortion.
Thus wartime congestion Of people
in Washington gave landlords and
SUCCESSORS for a time the whiphand
in dealing with tenants. The Sauls.
bury law and its successors in rentals
regulation transferred the whip to
the hands of tenants.
Some landlords and more sub
lessons used the whip despotically and
unjustly when they had the opportu-
nifty. Some tenants used the whip
despotically and unjustly against land
lords and sublessors when the Sauls-
bury law and it's successors gave them
their opportunity.
Whenever one of the temporary
rental-regulation laws was about to
terminate some Of the landlords have
threatened reprisals upon objection
able tenants when the protection of
the law was no longer enjoyed. And
Congress has on each occasion re-
sponded to this threat by re-enacting
for an additional period the war
emergency rent law.
Washington has suffered and suf-
fers at every stage of this war of
retaliation and threatened reprisals
1t suffered from the original and in
cidental profiteering and unjust deal
ing, whether by landlord or tenant
Washingtonians, in the mass. have
been profiteered upon by an insig-
nificant percentage of profiteers. And
finally Washington suffers in good
repute in the Nations respect and
friendly consideration, being pilloried
as responsible, collectively, for the
very profteering from which it is the
main sufferer.
Thus the Capital community, as a
whole, suffers from any excessive
rentals; suffers from the injustices of
rental laws which violate the spirit
of the Constitution and which are de.
fensible only as meeting a wartime
emergency, and, finally, suffers with
disastrous results in the good opinion
of the Nation, as represented in Con-
gress, being unjustly held responsible
for the profteering which it is com
PEELED to endure.
Landlords and tenants should both
be driven toward negotiation of a
peace of justice, through reciprocal
concessions and small sacrifices, not
merely by selfish consideration of
their own permanent interest, but by
anxious public-spirited concern for the
welfare Of Washington.
The pending bill furnishes no euui-
table and effective solution of the diff
ficulty At time when more houses
for rent are needed it discourages
every owner of rental property from
renting. 1t continues into peace
time, deprived of the justification of
war necessity and wartime emer-
gency, legislation of dubious constitu.
tionality. By its new drastic, despotic
and slurring features it intensifies bit
ter resentments and passionate i'm
pulses to retaliate if the law should
be declared unconstitutional.
instead of ending it.
If the new law is declared consti-
tutional, Washington suffers vitality
also in that event, for another element
of debasement will be thereby at
tached to the status of the Washing
tonian. The Supreme Court has de-
clared that he is less than an alien
in his lack of access to the United
States courts. The American princi-
pie, "No taRation without representa-
tion," does Tot apply to him. Now
it is suggested that a mere juggling
Of words into a certain formula in a
statute can deprive him of such con-
stitutional rights and safeguards as
the guarantee that his property shall
not be taken from him without just
compensation and without due process
OF law; and the seat of National Gov
ernment is also branded with the
stigma of being the only spot in the
United States where there is no sane
oLity to certain contracts. where a les.
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