In accordance with the by-laws, we have examined the affairs of the Land Bank of the State of New York as of the close of business, December 31, 1931.

We hereby certify that we have audited the accounts and examined the securities and have compared the same with the books and records of the bank and find the same correct and herein truly reflected.

WILLIAM J. CONSIDINE,
JOHN R. B. BYERS,
Supervisory Committee.

Senator WATSON. Of course we might enter into a lot of argument about things at times, because we have conflicting views here. Usually, when I conduct hearings, I have a free for all. I let anybody sitting around ask questions, and in that way we develop the thought and opinion of the witness and all the others connected with him. The only reason I have not done it at this time is simply because of sheer lack of time. We get into some wonderful discussions. We learn a great deal more that way than any other way, but the sheer lack of time has kept me from doing that. It develops the strength of the opposition as well as the strength of the proposition.

Who else wants to be heard?

Mr. KISSELL. Might I be heard?

Senator WATSON. You have been heard.

Mr. KISSELL. I would like to be heard again. I have some information here that I would like to give you.

FURTHER STATEMENT OF HARRY S. KISSELL, FORMER PRESIDENT NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REAL ESTATE BOARDS, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO

Mr. KISSELL. Senator, I wanted to refute one or two things in the way of testimony which has been given by the opponents of this bill. For instance, I was rather surprised this morning to hear my good friend Mr. Stephenson say that the bankers with whom he had talked did not approve this bill. I have here a list of bankers who do approve it.

The Spokane (Wash.) Clearing House unanimously indorsed the plan. The Reading (Pa.) Clearing House approved it, as well as the Cleveland (Ohio) Clearing House and the Indianapolis (Ind.) Clearing House. The Indiana National Bank, of Indianapolis, of which Mr. Stalnaker is president and which I understand is the largest bank in Indiana, has approved it. The Boonton (N. J.) National Bank has approved it, and the Ohio Savings Bank of Toledo; the American Trust & Savings Bank of Richmond, Va., and so forth. I do not want to weary you by reading this list. I will just submit it for the record.

(The list referred to is as follows:)

BANKS FAVORING THE PLAN

Spokane (Wash.) Clearing House has unanimously endorsed the plan. Reading (Pa.) Clearing House wired approval to President Hoover.

Cleveland (Ohio) Clearing House, H. V. Shulters, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Indianapolis (Ind.) Clearing House, Frank D. Stalnaker, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Industrial Bank of Detroit (Mich.), Eugene W. Lewis, president. wired President Hoover approval.

Indiana National Bank, Indianapolis, Ind., Frank D. Stalnaker, president, (largest bank in Indiana) wired approval to President Hoover.

Boonton (N. J.) National Bank, Henry G. Rolston, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Ohio Savings Bank & Trust Co., Toledo, Ohio, Claude A. Campbell, vice president, wired approval to President Hoover.

American Bank & Trust Co., Richmond, Va., Oliver J. Sands, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

First National Bank, Madison, Wis., L. M. Hanks, chairman of the board, wired approval to President Hoover.

Trenton Trust Co., Trenton, N. J., wired approval to President Hoover. State Bank of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., Leo T. Crawley, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Central United National Bank, Cleveland, Ohio, Corliss E. Sullivan, chairman, wired approval to President Hoover.

Union Trust Company, Cleveland Ohio, W. M. Baldwin, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Cleveland Trust Co., Cleveland, Ohio, Harris Creech, president, wired approval to President Hoover as follows: "Your plan meets the approval of the entire banking group in this section."

The First Central Trust Co., Akron, Ohio, Harry Williams, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

First National Bank, Bakersfield, Calif., Adam Osborne, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Peoples Wayne County Bank, Detroit, Mich., Wilson W. Mills, chairman of the board, wired enthusiastic approval to President Hoover.

Tiffin National Bank, Tiffin, Ohio, Wm. L. Hertzer, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

The Savings Deposit Bank Co., Medina, Ohio, E. B. Spitzer, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Federal Reserve Bank, Cleveland, Ohio, George DeCamp, chairman of the board.

Durham Loan & Trust Co., Durham, N. C.; Home Savings Bank, Durham, N. C.; Home Security Life Insurance Co., Durham, N. C. John Sprunt Hill, president of the three institutions, wired President Hoover approval.

Salem Bank & Trust Co., Goshen, Ind., C. Edwin Stout, secretary and treas

urer.

Five Cents Savings Bank, Salem, Mass., Harry P. Gifford, president; also a past president of National Association of Savings Banks.

Union Trust Co., Dayton, Ohio, Walter G. Davidson, president.

Continental Illinois Bank & Trust Co., Chicago, Ill., Eugene Stevens, president. At the Atlantic City bankers' meeting Mr. Stevens made some very favorable comments. (American Bankers' Association.)

Commercial National Bank, Madison, Wis.; president favors the plan and mentioned in a radio talk recently.

Savings Trust Co., 4915 Delmar Boulevard, St. Louis, Mo., John J. Dowling, president, wrote President Hoover a letter approving plan.

State Savings Bank, Council Bluffs, Iowa, H. L. Tinley, cashier, wired approval to President Hoover.

First National Bank, Council Bluffs, Iowa, F. F. Everest, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

City National Bank, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Robert W. Turner, president, wired approval to President Hoover.

Council Bluffs (Iowa) Savings Bank, B. A. Gronstall, vice president.

All Fargo (N. Dak.) banks are writing President Hoover of their approval. Two hundred bankers in Ohio have wired President Hoover their approval. All Cleveland bankers approve the plan.

Cleveland's largest investment houses have also sent President Hoover wires. Mr. KISSELL. Here are banks and clearing houses all over the United States which have approved this unequivocally, including the Ohio State Bankers Association; the Union Trust Co. in Cleveland; the Cleveland Trust Co., and so forth. In Bakersfield, Calif., the First National Bank has approved it. The Savings Deposit Bank Co., of Medina, Ohio, has approved it, as well as the Durham,

N. C., Loan & Trust Co., and the Salem Bank & Trust Co., of Goshen, Ind.

Senator WATSON. Do you know whether or not they had this last redraft of the bill?

Mr. KISSELL. I do not know at just what point their approval came in, but I understand that the bankers generally approved this last bill, except along some lines. I think Mr. Robertson, of Cleveland, wrote you about it.

Senator WATSON. Yes. I got the letter. I have not put it in the record yet.

Mr. KISSELL. I talked to him this morning. He called me on the telephone this morning about that very point.

The answer to the opposition was expressed by one gentleman here this morning, who said "this would put the bank in direct competition with them." That is why these people are objecting to this bank. An organization with 400 members objects. They are loaning largely money for insurance companies. They object because it is going to interfere with the commissions which they will get for making those loans. They loan largely on apartments, hotels, and office buildings, and sell real estate bonds, and so forth. They have come in here and assumed to speak for the home owner of America. They do loan some on homes, but it is insurance

money.

I wonder if I could take your time to explain to you why the insurance money does not take care of the great mass of the people of this country. The insurance companies have done a marvelous piece of work in encouraging home ownership. There is no criticism of that, and no criticism at all of the manner in which they loan, because they have to protect their policyholders' money, and that is fine. I would not have any breakdown in their rules at all, but I am simply showing you why they do not reach the masses of the people. As a rule, their loans are confined to towns of 50,000 or over, and you know the great mass of people live in towns under that size. Think of the thousands of towns in this country which are not reached by that. They will not loan on homes which are over 15 years old. That means that the working man can not go out of the slum section where he has been living and buy a good secondhand house that may be old, and get any help from their

money.

Besides, they will only loan in certain restricted sections, so that the great mass of the people are not benefited by those loans.

Then, there has been a lot of talk about the overbuilt situation. We have a vacancy survey on file in the Department of Commerce, which you can get, which shows that there is only a vacancy, by actual survey, of 5 per cent in this country.

As President Hoover put it at one of his meetings, the United States has gone into a huddle. People have had to do that to reduce expenses. There have been some vacancies, but when conditions are returned to normal, there is not the extreme vacancy and lack of need of homes that has been said.

We have never maintained that we were for this bill to start a building campaign. We have said from the start that that was not our idea.

Senator WATSON. What do you think about this inflation of building if this bill is passed?

Mr. KISSELL. I do not see any possibility of inflation, as far as this goes. In the first place, it is not going to be to the advantage of a building and loan association or a savings organization to rediscount their paper simply for the purpose of promoting building in a community. Besides, there are strong brakes provided by the bill by which the board itself can put a check on any organization which is loaning in an inflationary way. All those things are possible.

You must remember that 50 per cent of our people in this country are living in houses over 25 years of age, and the great mass of the people of this country are living in slum sections, and so forth. Until the people get out of those slum conditions, we can not say that we have an overbuilt situation in this country.

Some of the testimony that was brought in here says that the present rate of population growth and obsolescence of existing structures does not warrant increasing the annual rate of home construction 50 per cent or more. Nobody is talking about increasing home construction 50 per cent or more. No one is asking that. But I call to your attention what no less a man than Colonel Ayers, of the Cleveland Trust Co., said to me not long ago when I asked him if he could agree with Paul Mazur who wrote a book that came out about a month ago in which Paul Mazur says that it is estimated that the deficit in residential buildings stands roughly at $3,500,000,000 at the present time, and he goes on and gives the proof of how he arrives at that conclusion

Senator WATSON. Who is he?

Mr. KISSELL. Paul Mazur is a banker in New York who has written three books. He is a partner of Lehman Bros, in New York. He has written three very wonderful books during this depression, and the New York Times thought enough of this one chapter to give it practically a column of review-this one chapter on the home loan bank. I asked Colonel Ayers how far he could go along with Mr. Mazur on the statement that there was a $3,500,000,000 shortage. Colonel Ayers said, "Well, I don't believe I can go quite that far,. but there is no question but that there is a shortage of homes in the making in this country."

The Department of Labor has figures here showing the great drop in the number of 1-family houses built in this country in 272 cities since 1924. It has dropped from a peak of 296,000, and each year has gone down until it is 61,000. There has been a rapid decrease in the number of homes built in this country.

Senator WATSON. Why?

Mr. KISSELL. Because of the lack of ability to finance it, and because the people were out of work and could not buy homes.

Senator WATSON. When did that lack begin? It did not begin as far back as 1924?

Mr. KISSELL. It began around 1925. There was an overbuilt situation in this country in 1925. There is no question about that. Then it commenced to drop, as the figures will show, which I will file here as a part of the record. It began to drop in 1925, and it has been dropping ever since.

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