Evening star., 1935-06-23
The Rent Control Bill.

Inc supreme OOut OplI1Ou ID The
N. r. A. case has served to cast further
doubt on the constitutionality of the bill
to revive the wartime rent commission
in the District and if that measure
comes before the House on District day,
tomorrow, careful consideration should
be given the serious question of its
validity raised by those of its drastic
provisions impairing the obligations of
contract.
The power Of the proposed rent COM
mission, acting on its own initiative or
upon complaint of landlord or tenant, to
set aside contracts voluntarily entered
into and to order into effect its own
findings as regard fair rentals, is the
sum and substance of the whole scheme
of rent control proposed in this bill.
The right to exercise of this extraor-
dinary power is based on the legislative
assumption of:
80 /" Emergencies growing out of the
war against the depression, resulting in
rental and housing conditions in the
District dangerous to the public and
burdensome to public officers and en-
ployes and other persons whose
activities are essential to the mainte-
nance and comforts of such officers and
employees, and thereby embarrassing the
yederal Government in the transaction
of public business"
In the N. h. A. decision, the Supreme
Court reiterated the doctrine that "un-
doubtedly the conditions to which power
is addressed are always to be considered
when the exercise of power is challenged.
Extraordinary conditions may call for
extraordinary remedies. But the argu-
ment necessarily stops short of an at
tempt to justify action which lies outside
the sphere Of constitutional authority"
The war time rent control act, on
which the present bill is modelled, was
sustained in Block VS.. Hirsh (256 U. s.
1850, by a five-to-four decision, which
took account of the emergency condi-
tions resulting from or incident to the
war. That act may be said to have
fallen within the scope Of war measures.
But after the rent law, first enacted as
temporary, had been re-enacted twice,
another case reached the Supreme Court
(Chastleton Corp. VS.. Sinclair, 264 U. s.,
543), and was sent back to the lower
court for determination of the facts
relating to the emergency" Justice
Holmes writing an opinion which stated
that law depending upon the existence
Of an emergency or other certain state
of facts may cease to operate if the
emergency ceases or the facts change
even though valid when passed" Con-
gress thereafter permitted the rent
control bill to expire.
The present bill is, of course, no war
measure, despite the rhetorical alluSion
to the war against the depression" 1t
is a question whether the peace-time
powers of Congress extend to the lengths
in the pending bill, even in
the District of Columbia.
But under any condition, the facts
relating to an emergency are of funda-
mental importance. In this connection
the report accompanying the bill is
curiously incomplete. Stress is laid on
the fact that Government employees have
increased by about fifty per cent be-
tween 1888 and 1885, now approximating
the wartime peak of 1918. But there
is no parallel between this increase and
the war emergency which brought an
increase of 1914 per cent in the number
OF Government employees in less than
two years. While the wartime emerg-
ency increased the city's population
suddenly by about a third, the war
against the depression" If dated from
1880, has been accompanied by an in
crease Of about eight per cent. And since
1924, when the Rent Commission went
out of existence, new construction,
mostly residential and apartments, to
the value Of about $392,oOO.OOO. has
been completed or is under way.
No rental emergency" comparable to
the real emergency Of the war days
exists today. And it is unfortunate that
an attempt to end some Of the admitted
and ever-preSent evils of landlord tenant
relationships should take the form of this
revived and extraordinarily drastic bill,
which legislatiVely clothes all private
rental dwelling property with a public
Interest" which supersedes and sets aside
the freedom of contract and the obliga-
tons Of contract, and in some of its
exemption, for instance,
of new building" from rent CONTROLS
arbitrary If not capricious.
For there is undoubtedly room for
lair legislation in the matter Of land
ord tenant relations, such as the fixing
If minimum standards of housing, the
arbitration of disputes and, as once
suggested by the Public Utilities Com
the possible registration Of ten
ants along with the licensing of land
ords. Certainly there Is a broad Held
'or Improvement in the rental situation !
laced by the so-called alley dwellers,
where the ordinary laws Of supply and |
governing most rental ques-
A