Evening star., 1936-04-19
BY NELSON M. SHEPARD.

ity throughout the Nation and result
ing in widespread and prolonged un-
employment with its injurious effects
upon the general welfare of the Nation.
Private industry alone has been
band now is unable to overcome the
obstacles in the way of relieving the
shortage of decent, safe and sanitary
dwellings for families of low income,
and the several States and their politi-
cal subdivisions have been and are un-
able adequately to aid in remedying
this condition without financial as
sistance"
The foregoing is quoted from the
preamble to the $876,000,000 housing
bill introduced April by Senator Rob-
ert F. Wagner of New York in pro-
posing a new frontal attack to remove
one of the most formidable obstacles
from the path of industrial recovery
and accomplish at the same time
humanitarian objective.
1t is at once a declaration Of per-
manent policy based on newly con-
ceived principles embodied in the bill
and frank admission of the failure of
Federal efforts over a three-year period
of liberal pump printing to stimulate
employment in the hard-hit building
trades.
II Per Cent Denied Jobs.
The American Federation of Labor
Is authority for the statement that so
per cent of the union members of the
building trades were unemployed last
February. At least 81 per cent were
said to be employed only on part
time baSis-a condition that always
has prevailed in the building trades to
a lesser degree, even during the van
ished years of abnormal prosperity.
In other words, n per cent of the
organized workers in these trades
are denied today the benefits of
long-standing American tradition that
permanent jobs at living wages should
be available to every individual who
wants to work. Perhaps the percentage
= given by the A. F. of L. is too high,
but it is sufficiently accurate to de-
scribe a condition among an impor-
tant group of American laborers that
still battles satisfactory solution after
nearly three years of desperate meas
ures to remedy it.
Few elements have endured more or
longer of the vicissitudes of the eco
nomic depression than the building
trades and the industries supplying
the materials for building construc-
ton. Unemployment is more acute in
these than in any other organized
trades and has been so during all the
hard years since 1929.
The depression brought construction
to a standstill. First to lose their
jobs were the construction men. the
rlasons. bricklayers, carpenters, steel
workers, electricians, plumbers and
decorators. Later. for each man
thrown out of work at the site, at
least one other lost his job further
back along the line of supplies.
Unemployment Increases.
. During 1929, the A. F. of L. claims,
an average of 25 per cent of the build
ing trade unionists were totally un-
employed as against an average of
IL per cent for all trades.
BY January, 1885, despite Federal
expenditures, the unemployed ac-
counted for 60 per cent, with an
average of 50 per cent for the entire
year.
Again using the 1929 basic figures
of the A. F. of L.. total of 2,09l Alb
in the building trades were at work in
that year. OF those, 1650.4l3 we're
L.,y Two arfn M
were engaged in building operations
on their own account.
Five years later the depression
had taken its toll to the extent that
the number gainfully employed in
January, 1885. had been reduced to
653,476, but the Spring pickup in
business accounted for 890,189 who
found jobs in September of that year.
= Then last January, a year later, the
employed had dropped again, being
724,664, an increase nevertheless of
71,183 over the corresponding month
OF 1885.
From the Labor Department view
point the outlook was equally as dis
couraging in February-a month of
zero weather in many localities that
halted building operations. Reports
received from s,776 private contractors
employing 53,695 workers showed a
decrease of 1877 per cent in the num-
ber of employees from the previous
month, while pay rolls decreased 1913
per cent. Employment provided
through Federally- financed work are
excluded from the figures.
Wagner to the Rescue.
This then is the situation in the
rushes to the rescue with brand-new
bill to set up the Housing Division of
P. w. A. as a permanent and inde-
pendent housing agency of the Federal
Government. 1t was much the same
situation as confronted Secretary Har-
old L. Ickes when he first organized
the Housing Division in the Summer
of 1888, when the slump in the build
ing trades had about reached its peak.
The New Deal has pioneered to learn
q lot about getting the best out of the
Federal housing dollar in the past
three years.
1--WE are now at the point of emer-
eence from the laboratory STAGE" Sec
retary Ickes said two months ago in
discussing P. w. AS $3.50, 100000 pro-
gram for low-cost housing and slum
clearance.
Before this year is out Uncle Sam
will be in the apartment house busi-
ness on a large scale. regardless of
whether the Wagner bill-which Pres
ident Roosevelt has not yet approved
becomes law or not.
Fifty Federal projects financed by
p. w. A. to provide homes for $4,000
families are under construction in IS
cities, in the Virgin Islands and in
Puerto Rico. The first of these SUBJ
divisions to receive tenants early this
Summer are in Atlanta, Montgomery,
Ala; Cleveland and Indianapolis. Sec
retarv Ickes already Is a landlord to