The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies.
HOMES 'O.l.OVE 'h-.TION Libber Manufacturers Assn.- National Retail Libber Dealer s Assn. 1337 Connect:* cut Avenue » Washington, D.C. i'he President, I oiise* , ;. -ton* }« . ...! KT« President: '.T-.e attached cov.-;- . l«tt i r«gATt . t h e *l<Od I I b I I aliev>"- , I 11 -- ! . ' | .. • . • Pta M%i eq^ipmotit ir;d\iatries. ,:. ...oved ooo.-.HiiT^ •• ..v 3 ,.... to ROblll»« tl effort >hr Ulg and. ownership sinall Sion-ss. l;;il(.. ,e Lo ' i: #113 oe ;iot . : --. - tl flek« - K1 .:t but l e a s potent as a • . • • - . . ' • . : s .' . ..* ^eans of • ra respect- • a;>n Go:::,-ten Copy to: Mr. Ll.S. Eccles NATIONAL SMALL HOMES DEMONSTRATION Initiated by National Lumber Mfrs. Assn. - National Retail Lumber Dealer: Assn 1337 Connecticut Avenue - Washington, D. C. January 5, The Honorable Robert J. Bulkley, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. HOUSING BILL Dear Senator: I hope that you and your colleagues in conference on the Housing Bill will consent to the omission of the so-called "prevailing wage" amendment. If this proposal has merit, its merits should be explored in other legislation than that intended to mobilize small-cost modern housing for families of comparatively low income. The system of mortgage insurance protecting long-time amortized loans is necessary to invite capital at reasonable interest rates. All this is necessary to mobilize the potential building of small-cost homes. The effect of the prevailing wage amendment may not be dismissed as unimportant unless we are willing, also, to dismiss as unimportant the whole P.H.A. insured mortgage system and the improved standards and methods of home financing which are being gradually built upon it. The President in his recent message made this statement, with reference to wage matters: "We are seeking, of course, only legislation to end starvation wages and intolerable hours; more desirable wages are and should continue to be the product of collective bargaining." The wages of plasterers, plumbers, carpenters and masons, whether union or non-union, certainly are not "starvation" wages. They may In some instances not be "desirable" wages. But If the purpose of the Federal Government is to avoid starvation wages, there is no warrant for denying a man the opportunity to work for 7 5 ^ a n hour merely because he cannot get a"job at $1.00 or $1,50. And do not doubt that this will be the result in hundreds of communities If this amendment Is fastened into this law* The term "prevailing wage" of course has an ordinary meaning to ordinary citizens, quite different from the interpretation which the Secretary of Labor has fastened upon It. No one, I think, would question a provision that the availability of Senator Bulkley - 2 - 1-5-38 F.H.A. mortgage insurance should not be used to beat down local wages• But that is vastl3r different from the proposal that F,H,A. mortgage insurance be not available on building which has not paid or does not pay the union wage scale, even if such a provision could be equitably administered, which it cannot. This connotation has been so completely fastened upon the phrase that it undoubtedly will be regarded as equivalent to the term "union wage scale"; and this, no doubt, was the intent of the sponsors of the amendment• The homes principally needed are for families with annual incomes less than $1500. The bulk of them receive between 1|.5^ and 60^ an hour. What public purpose will be served by asking them to pay house prices or house rents based on building trade wages twice as great as their own, paid to men who for the most part willingly work for less and who generally prefer to have steady work for less than occasional work for more? Or as tho alternative, denying them the advantages and facilities of F.H.A, mortgage insurance. The National Small Homes Demonstration is an informal cooperation of the principal building industries. Its sole purpose is to mobilize home building in the price ranges less than 15000, It is a movement of unique promise and is intended to respond to the appeal for cooperation with the efforts of the Federal Government to stimulate hone building and facilitate homo ownership in this area, both as a recovery measure and as an aid to better housing. There is a general conviction concurred in, I believe, by the Federal Housing Administration, that this and similar efforts to mobilize low-cost housing, will be greatly retarded, if not nullified, by any effort to make the pending Housing Bill a vehicle for legislation incompatible with the declared objectives of the legislation itself, and not in accord with the wage policy of the Administration as stated in his recent message by the President himself. Yours sincerely, Wilson Compton P.S, - It doesn!t seem reasonable that the entire housing program should be cramped because of a local labor situation in Massachusetts, which apparently is responsible for the inclusion of the provision in the Senate bill. c The following articles are protected by copyright and have been removed. The citations for the original articles are: American Lumberman, “A Plan to Solve the Farm Labor Problem, Take 500,000 People Off Relief,” December 18, 1937, p. 25. American Lumberman, “What Do You Think About It?,” December 18, 1937, p. 26. American Lumberman, “Where You Will Find It in This Issue” [Table of Contents], January 15, 1938, No. 3117, p. 1. American Lumberman, “Billion-Dollar Market For Tenant Houses Seen on Farms of Nation,” January 15, 1938, No. 3117, pp. 28-30.
@FedFRASER