Evening star., 1936-04-28
WAGNER LAYS ILLS
TO POOR HOUSING
Forum Speakers Figures
Show SquaIor Affects
45,OOO,O00 in U. S.

At least II 900, 900 American fam
lies, accounting for 45,000,00O persons,
or one-third of the total population OF
the Nation, are forced to live amid
home conditions which do not protect
their health and safety, Senator Wag-
ner, Democrat, of New York, said
last night in the National Radio
Forum, arranged by The Washington
Star and broadcast over National
Broadcasting Co. network.
Senator Wagner, explained the pro-
visions of the pending housing bill
which he introduced in the Senate and
declared that there is nothing that
could be so useful to the Nation to-
day as better housing
Bad housing conditions, he said,
are confined to neither the city nor
to the country. The traveller who sets
out upon a tour of the United States,
he said, will find slums and shacks,
inhabited by the underprivileged, in
every State and county"
If the traveller puts aside the super
ficiality of quick visit, and delays
long enough to enter these lowly
homes and study the lives of their
people" he said, 'he will gather a
very tragic history. He will learn
that the danger of contracting tuber-
culosis is 80 times as high within the
slums as elsewhere. He will find that
in the lowest class of tenement rooms
the infancy death rate is three times
as high as normal. He will discover
rundown sections of our country,
where the rate of juvenile delinquency
is 800 times as high as in more pros
porous areas. He will see that gener-
alton after generation of American
children are forced to live in environ
ments polluted by crime, by disease,
and by the demoralizing knowledge
that they are denied the chances
which other people have
Low Income Problem.
The Slum problem cannot be solved
by education or propaganda or by
preaching about better living, the
Senator told his radio listeners. 1t is
a problem caused by insufficient in
comes. He said that today 100000
families have earnings of less than
$1,000 year and that the lowest
income upon which a normal family of
five can house itself in safety and
sanitation is about $500 a year.
This cold. cruel state of affairs, -
he said, has led all except the blind
to acknowledge that some public as
sistance is necessary if the poor are
to be provided with decent housing,
and if the well-to-do are to be pro-
tected from the communicating in
f1uence of infected areas"
The text of Senator Wagner's ad-
dress follows:
Friends of the radio audience: Any
discussion of public issue at the pres
ent time should commence with the
recognition that business recovery has
been largely achieved 1t is impos-
kible for me in the short space of a
single talk to cite all the evidences
of this recovery. Let me call your
attention. however, to an outstanding
fact. It is generally conceded that
the automobile trade is one of the
best indexes of industrial conditions
According to an estimate by Dun &
BradStreet issued last week, the num-
Der Of automobiles produced during
the month of April will be about
100000 greater than during the month
of March. These impressive figures,
II taken alone, might be explained by
special causes. But we know that
they exemplify what is going on in
steel, in retail trade. in railroading,
and in our other key industries.
Must Create Opportunities.
These gains have been promoted
through the instrumentality of the
New Deal policies. So effective an
instrument cannot be laid aside when
one task is accomplished. 1t must
rather be devoted to the new prob
lens of society and the new RESPONSE
bilities of government. While the
depression has been broken, there is
still need to create even wider oppor-
tunities for reasonable business profits.
ThD'e is still need to give the average
man an even better chance to earn a
decent living in the present and to
look with fearless security toward his
future. Above all, there is still need
to make sure that large and deserving
sections of our population are not
forgotten in the midst of recovery.
The yet uncured sore spots in our
economic system must not be neg
lected or they will again threaten
the whole system with disease.
While we have made tremendous
progress toward national health, there
are some of these sore spots which
require additional treatment. Most
important of all is the fact that mil
lions of our people are unemployed.
This is strain upon the Government,
because it means heavy relief rolls.
1t is severe tax upon business, be-
cause in the final analysis the Gov
ernment is supported by business en-
terprise. 1t is terrible social in
justice to millions of men and women,
who see opportunity denied to them,
In land founded upon the principle
Of equal opportunities for all.
ANY sincere search for a cure for
unemployment must commence with
careful diagnosis of its cause. This
cause is not merely hangover from
the depression, which will wear off in
few years of its own account. It is
more serious than that. 1t is the
result of changes in the mechanical
methods of business, which have re-
placed men by machinery in hundreds
of industries. During the first three
decades of the present century, these
inventions were SO far reaching, that
by 1880 one man was able to turn
out as much work as two men could
In 1900. Since the beginning of the
depression this tendency has con-
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