Evening star., 1949-12-04
Desiqned to Confuse

ca SUNDAY. December 4. 1919
Designed to Confuse
The Solicitor General, Philip B. Perlman.
speaking for the Attorney General, Howard
McGrath, who was authorized by the Pres
ident and the Federal Housing Admins
traitor to speak for them, told meeting
in New York on Friday that:
The Federal Housing Administration is
amending its rules so as to refuse to aid the
financing of any properties the occupancy or
use of which is restricted on the basis Of race
Or creed or color.
That is what Mr. Perlman said in his
first paragraph. But in the second para
graph he said this:
Under the amendments to be issued. no
property will be eligible for FILA mortgage
insurance IT, after date to be specified in
the amendments and before the FHA insur-
ance mortgage is recorded. there has been
recorded covenant racially restricting the
use or occupancy of the property.
There is great difference between the
meaning of the first paragraph and the
meaning of the second paragraph. The
first paragraph means that builder who
intends to construct an apartment house
for white only, or for colored only, will be
unable to receive FILA insurance for his
construction loans. That was the mean
ing attributed to the first paragraph by
many newspaper dispatches and headlines,
for the reporters are accustomed to believe
that when the Solicitor General OF the
United States makes statement, he means
precisely what he says.
In consequence, building industry spokes-
men in various parts OF the country began
to wonder, in audible terms, what was going
to happen to FILA loans. For they knew
that the condition imposed in the opening
paragraph of Mr.. Perlman's speech would
be more likely to retard construction OF
housing than to eliminate racial segrega-
ton. The intent of Congress, OF course,
was to stimulate construction through FILA
loans The intent of Congress was not to
end segregation in housing. If that had
been the intent Congress would have
said so
AS a matter of fact, the FILA amend
ments described by Mr.. Perlman are not
apt to have any effect whatsoever on
segregation or housing loans. They will
deny insurance for a loan in a case where
the owner or builder has, after some future
date, filed a covenant as legal document
agreeing with others on some form OF
racial or other restrictions. But as the
Supreme Court has held that such cove
nants are not enforceable in the courts,
they are without legal standing. Recording
such a covenant as matter OF legal record
Is, therefore, rather meaningless gesture.
For an owner or builder of an apartment
house still can make an informal agree
ment with others, or make effective rigid
policy of his own on occupancy, that dis
eliminates on the basis Of race or creed
or color but which will not affect his
eligibility to receive an FHA-guaranteed
loan.
The disturbing part of all this Is not
the effort by President Truman and others
to end segregation. That is an objective
which is steadily gaining adherents in
some parts of the United States and there
is little doubt that most of the forms OF
discrimination and segregation that we
know today will in time disappear.
The disturbing part of the business is the
effort by Mr.. Perlman, undoubtedly carry
ing out the instruction of his superiors, to
make something appear to be what 1t is
MOTTO fool a great many people by the
deliberate use of words that confuse rather
than clarity. The careful choice OF such
words and phrases to obscure the real
meaning, or the lack of real meaning, IN
what Mr.. Perlman was saying is plain
throughout the printed text. A reader OF
the text who wished to see the Government
step in and arbitrarily end segregation IN
housing on Nationwide basis by With
holding FHA loans could find what he was
looking for. But to those who read the text
with knowledge of what to look for 1t
was evident that the Governments dis
tinguished spokesman was not saying what
he pretended to be saying.
That type of obfuscation might be de-
Tended on the ground that Mr.. Perlman
and his superiors were enunciating q lofty
principle and were not concerning them
selves with the detailed mechanics OF It's
application If so, it is disingenuous
method OF enunciating the principle, 1t
suggests a tongue in the cheek and 1t
deliberately avoids the candor which ought
to characterize discussions OF a serious
problem in human relations.
Mr.. Perlman was addressing a newly
organized group known as the "New York
state Committee on Discrimination in
Housing" It is the aim of this group to
eliminate segregation in public housing. It
fears that urban redevelopment, under the
Public Housing Act, is going to "build shiny
new ghettos, crystalizing patterns of dis
elimination with. modern front" Mr..
Perlman undoubtedly wished to place the
Executive Branch of the Government on
the side of this crusade.
But when the Housing Act was before