The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1946-01-04
HOME. AGAIN BLUES
By Boris Shishkin
AFL Economist

"Home by Christmas!" Home by
New Year's!" "Home by Easter"-
American fighters round the world
are making plans, building up hopes
Home is the most important thing to
them.
So far, only 40 percent of our arm
ed forces have been demobilized More
are on the way. They are not alone
in being homeward bound Millions of
war workers who have moved to war
production centers to fill emergency
jobs are again on the move-either
to where they lived before the war,
or looking for new homes in other
cities where they hope to get steady,
peacetime jobs. They, too, are going
home.
Going home? What home? Our
towns and cities are so crowded that
they are putting up mo vacancy" signs
right at their gates. From coast to
coast, cities are bursting at their
seams.
Millions are being told: "Sorry, but
there is no room. No, nothing today.
Or tomorrow. Or, perhaps, for a cou-
pie of years. The only thing to do is
to double up Crowd in with relatives
or with strangers. Live miserably but
be thankful for a roof"
The housing crisis is upon US with
it's whole crushing, monstrous force.
1t did not come as a surprise. All
through the war, labor called for ad-
vance planning and advance action
to meet this coming emergency. La
boris voice was ignored. The voice
that was heard and needed, was the
voice Of the speculator and the profi-
teer. Last August, just when the post
war housing emergency began to gain
momentum, the government began to
remove priorities and other emer-
gency means with which the crisis
could be met. The result was quick
scramble for building materials, still
desperately short. These went to
build, not what was most needed, but
what was most profitable; night clubs,
juke joints, beauty parlors, stores, but
not houses.
This week the government decided
to put emergency controls back on.
But this will help neither the veteran
nor the worker. The new program is
just the wrong kind. 1t is not for peo-
pie with modest means. 1t will direct
half of the available material into
building $4,000 houses. And the other
half? 1t can still be used for building
race tracks, juke joints, beauty par
lors and 40-room mansions.
That's how Reconversion Director
John Snyder's new plan will work.
How many veterans and how many
workers, can afford a $4,000 luxury
home? Labor has asked that 20 per-
cent Of available materials be allocat-
ed to build low and moderate price
homes. We have asked that 80 per-
cent of materials be used to build
plants, hospitals and other essential
construction. Labor's temporary, emer-
gency proposal makes sense to most
people. But Mr.. Snyder said-"No."
Congress has just authorized an
other emergency program to make
available barracks, Quonset huts and
trailers as temporary shelter for few
thousand veterans families. This stop
gap program is pitifully small, even
for today. And what of tomorrow?
The real answer, the full answer and
the permanent answer is the compre-
hensive postwar housing program en-
bodied in the Wagner-Taft bill. It will
make possible large scale construction
of privately built new houses for fam
ilies Of all incomes. It viii give vete-