The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1943-02-22
DON'T BACK WATER

of stress, between landlord who complains
that the rents he receives are too low and the
man-on-the-street who complains that he
cannot get all the coffee he wishes to drink
or all the gasoline he wishes to consume n
his automobile?
Both of them are bucking the govern
ment. And The Citizen reiterates that we
should conform to government regulations,
designed to help the war-effort, and that It
is unpatriotic to try to knot them up because
they affect our pocketbook or because they
curb our appetites or pleasures.
All of which applies to a letter that APP
peared in The Citizen, commenting on the
editorial, "Question of Live or Die
The correspondent entirely missed the
point of the editorial. He speaks of high sal
aries and implies that ones rent should be
based on the amount of money he earns.
What a man earns has nothing what
ever to do with the rent he pays. Were we 10
use the amount of salary as the basis of rent
to be paid. then the man who cams 500 q
week should pay higher rent for the sam
housing accommodations than the man
whose weekly earnings are $50.
The amount of a landlords investment
should be the guiding principle on which to
base the rents he charges. Let us consider
only one instance that has before appeared
in The Citizen regarding what was consfd-
cred an unfair reduction of rent in Key
West.
Key Wester owns two small apart
ments in a garage building, for each of
which he had been receiving $40 month
en- an investment of $4,000 His gross in
come on that sum was 81 $50 yearly. The
rents were reduced by the rent-contrOl Of
flee in Key West to $40 for each apart
ment, or $3.50 gross return yearly on the
investment
This Key Wester thought he had been
unfairly treated because he paid $50 d
month for one room in Fort Lauderdale.
That unjust charge, as the local rert-control
office pointed out, proved only that Fort
Lauderdale also should have ceilings placed
on the rents charged there.
1t may be added that one wrong thing
does not justify the commission of another
wrong. We know of young woman who
tries to condone her staying out late at
night by pointing out that other young wo-
men stay out late at night There is no just-
fication for any thing wrong, ranging from
remaining out too late to murder, because
somebody else has committed similar
wrong.
Five percent net is a large return in
these days Your banker will tell you that
he would be delighted to receive three per-
cent on prime securities that may be liqu-
dated Immediately without loss on principal.
He is unable to find such securities, as a re-
suit of which interest on time deposits in
many banks has been reduced to one-half
of one percent
Back to the two garage apartments
The gross return on them is almost 20 per-
cent, and gross of II percent will net at
least five percent on any rented house or
apartment in Key West today.
But this is no time to squabble over
percentages The point of The Citizen
former editorial and the point of this one
are that Uncle Sam must set up structures
when he is at war, because he conseieh-
tiously believes those structures are neces-
whatever those structures may be, we are
not patriotic if we fume and fret against
them.
We should not back water with our oar
while Uncle Sam is pulling hard to increase
the speed of our ship of state