Mr. MONRONEY. That is right. I would like to see some kind of a program to fit in above this subsidized farm program where we can really get some economic farm housing with a low-interest rate.

Mr. SMITH. Of course it is true, too, that Farm Credit Administration agencies operate to a limited extent with that type of farm. They are able to make loans for improving housing and farm building on farms, providing the farmer can meet their eligibility requirements, and apparently the Federal Housing Administration can insure loans on farms, but have not particularly developed that part of their program. Those would be two agencies which at the present time can operate in connection with the higher-income farmers.

Mr. MONRONEY. I think it is time that we did something about it. This program has been going on and on and on, and has been very successful in the cities, and I do not see why in the world it cannot be adapted to the farm areas.

Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we could not have for the record here, as long as the authorization is there, some statement on the limitations which are working to prevent the program from coming about in the farm areas?

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Campbell, could you develop this any further for the members of the committee?

Mr. CAMPBELL. In answer to Mr. Monroney's question, I think section 402 of the farm-housing title would provide a direct-loan source to the type of farm we have in mind. That authority does not compare, it is true, in volume, with the money that might be available under an insured-mortgage type of program.

We gave some consideration, in preliminary discussions on the bill, as to whether it would be advisable to start out with a plan of insured mortgages for housing on adequate farms. We recognize that the experience of the Federal Housing Administration had not been such as to demonstrate a willingness of investors to go into farm housing on an insured-mortgage basis. It was the thought, I believe, that perhaps a program of direct loans might lead to opening up that field for private financing, and eventually we might get into an insured program similar to the urban insured-mortgage program of the Federal Housing Administration.

Mr. MONRONEY. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. If there are no further questions, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Lasseter, you may stand aside. Thank you very much for your testimony. You have been very helpful.

(The following statements were submitted for inclusion in the record :)

STATEMENT OF ALEXANDER NUNN, MANAGING EDITOR, THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER,

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, my name is Alexander Nunn. My business headquarters is Birmingham, Ala. I am managing editor of the Progressive Farmer. My attendance before this committee is purely voluntary and in the interest of urging adoption of title 4, commonly known as the ruralhousing section of the General Housing Act of 1949.

Advocates of a national better farm housing program have sought for the last 15 years legislation that would do for farm families what the Federal Housing Administration and public housing projects have done for families in cities and towns. None of the experiments has proved very successful. They were attempted on the basis of urban housing programs directed by leaders who did not

know farm conditions. Billions have been invested in urban housing; a few millions have gone into better farm homes.

Only real progress, through Nation-wide impetus, has come from the Bankhead-Jones farm ownership program administered by Farm Security. Up to now, FSA has directly aided 40,000 farm families in the South to get farms of their own and 40,000 better homes to live in. The rural-housing section of the Housing Act now before you would open the way for hundreds of thousands of farm families to get better homes and other farm buildings. It would mean better housing for landowners, tenants, and wage hands. Through low-cost, longterm credit, it offers a chance for low-income farm families to get decent housing. We need to recognize that 10 good farm years have not solved all of our housing problems. In the South in 1940 one in five farm families had a cash income of $1,000 or more. By 1945 the percentage with cash incomes of $1,000 or more had increased to one in every two. That percentage has increased still further since 1945. But we still have around two farm families in every five with annual incomes of less than $1,000. A study by USDA on the farm housing problem stated that, for the country as a whole, unless a family was able to produce at least $1,500 gross farm income per year under 1939 conditions it was not able to finance an acceptable dwelling from farm income. Better housing would provide one of the bases for further lifting income levels of these lowincome families. Better housing would lead to better health, for doing better farming. It would provide increased incentive, increased stimulus, for better farming.

North Carolina has provided a striking example of what better housing, better nutrition, and better health care can mean. The percentage of rejection of draftees for the State during the war was very high. My recollection is that it was almost 50 percent. Yet in one of the large orphanages of the State a complete study of all the boys called from it for service showed almost no rejections.

We are making great progress in reducing tenancy in the South. We have reduced the number of tenants over 20 percent since 1940. During the same period, the number and percent of owners was definitely increasing. Yet we need to remember that tenancy is not going to be eliminated. With tenant housing the most critical of our farm housing problems, this bill before you offers opportunity for tremendous improvement in that field.

I should like to commend that part of the rural-housing section which proposes to give study to rural-housing design, plans, materials, etc. If we had more plans that a farmer and his neighbors would understand and follow with effective results, we could make much more rapid housing progress.

In the Farmers Home Administration you have an agency for administering the rural-housing section that has done a very fine job for low-income farm families in the South. Its leaders already have a great deal of practical experience in building efficient, attractive homes for such families. I am quite certain they can be counted on to handle this new program effectively and expeditiously.

Hon. BRENT SPENCE,

NATIONAL FARM LABOR UNION, Washington 1, D. C., April 26, 1949.

Chairman, Banking and Currency Committee,

House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR SIR: Since it was not possible for me to be present this morning to present my statement on rural housing as scheduled, I would like to submit the enclosed statement for the record.

Yours very truly,

H. L. MITCHELL, President.

STATEMENT OF H. L. MITCHELL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FARM LABOR UNION,

A. F. OF L.

My organization which is composed of people at the bottom of the agricultural ladder, is vitally concerned with legislation to provide low-cost housing for rural people.

We are glad to see the provisions in the legislation which provide that the Secretary of Agriculture will make loans to owners of farms for construction of housing for their use and for tenants, share croppers and hired farm workers who live on their farms. We also note that the housing bill which has just 89451-49- -15

passed the Senate contains a provision to allocate 10 percent of the funds for construction of rural nonfarm housing. Since the bulk of the 21⁄2 million agricultural workers normally employed in farm work do not live directly on the property of the farm owners or operators, they will be eligible for renting homes in rural communities to be operated under public housing authorities in the small towns where such projects are to be located.

There are in existence at this time 37 migratory farm labor housing projects which are owned by the Federal Government. Under legislation adopted by the Eightieth Congress, these homes of migratory farm workers were supposed to be sold by June 30th, this year. I understand that some legislation has been introduced to repeal this law. However, I hope your committee will take this matter into consideration as it seems that the Federal Government would dispose of certain housing projects for a group of rural nonfarm workers, while at the same time legislation is being considered to construct similar housing projects.

In connection with housing for both permanent and migratory farm workers who do not live directly on the farm property, we are convinced that publicly owned and operated housing projects of a type similar to those provided for urban or industrial workers are the most practical. Proposals have been made for associations composed of persons other than farm workers to borrow money for the construction and operation of such housing. We do not believe that the Congress would approve a measure to appropriate funds to be loaned to General Motors to build housing for automobile workers. And it seems to us that such a proposal to provide funds for private associations of large farm operators disguised as cooperatives are of a similar nature.

We urge your committee to retain the provisions of the bill now before you to make available 10 percent of the funds for construction of rural nonfarm housing, with the understanding that this housing shall be made available to farm workers living in rural communities on the same basis as any other lowincome family in such a community.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Mitchell, President of the National Farm Labor Union will be our next witness.

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Mitchell is not here. We will hear from Mr. Leslie S. Perry.

STATEMENT OF LESLIE S. PERRY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE

Mr. PERRY. My name is Leslie S. Perry, and I represent the Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am very glad to have an opportunity to state the views of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on H. R. 4009.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have your views.

Mr. PERRY. I should say for the purpose of the record that we represent about a half million paid members in 1,600 units throughout the country.

There is an urgent need for housing to meet the critical situation for Americans of all races, creeds, and colors. American families, and especially families of Negro citizens, want decent homes in a wholesome environment at prices they can afford to pay.

The housing need, I believe, is well known to members of this committee. A representative of this association appeared before a subcommittee of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee in connection with a similar bill on December 12, 1945, during the Seventyninth Congress. We also gave testimony to the Joint Committee on Housing on January 19, 1948. More recently we testified before the Senate subcommittee considering S. 1070, which passed the Senate last week.

In each of these hearings our witness put into the record a great deal of evidence regarding the housing need among Negroes. We also discussed the various restrictive practices, including those of the Federal Housing Administration, which result in overcrowding and confining Negro citizens to the urban and rural slums of America.

In this brief statement, I shall therefore confine my discussion to several specific proposals for realizing the express goal in H. R. 4009, "a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family."

Title I of H. R. 4009, titled "Slum Clearance," provides only for Federal financial assistance to aid local public housing authorities to clear slums for land, for lease or for sale. Under this title private developers are expected to build, redevelop and manage such houses as may be constructed in the cleared area, whether such houses be for rent or for sale.

This title does not contemplate governmental construction of housing for either sale or rental. Moreover, this title is drafted on the theory that the basic policies of the Federal Government are to be obtained by incorporating in contracts with local public agencies, appropriate conditions for financial aid.

Several provisions are made mandatory by section 105 of title I. One of these is subsection (c), which provides that before a slum area may be cleared there must be a feasible method for the temporary relocation of families displaced from the project area, and there are being provided in the same project area, or other areas not less desirable, decent safe and sanitary dwellings equally in number to the number of such displaced families.

Now the use of that phrase, "temporary relocation" which appears in the bill in that connection, would suggest that it is the intent of the sponsors of this location that displaced persons be only temporarily displaced and will later have the right to live in the project area. We think this is an important feature of any slum-clearance program. However, we find no provision in the bill carrying out the implications of the phrase, "temporary relocation." In order that there may be no doubt, we propose that section 105, paragraph (b) be amended by inserting on page 12, at line 21, following the semicolon after word "time" a new subsection as follows:

To give preference in the selection of tenants, for dwelling units built in the project area, to families displaced there from cause of clearance and redevelopment activity, who desire to live in such dwelling units, and who will be able to pay rents or prices charged other families for comparable dwelling units built as a part of the same redevelopment.

Mr. Chairman, I should say that it seems to me to be only fair that when the Government steps in and uses the extraordinary process of eminent domain, and condemns real property owned or occupied by families, such families should have first priority in any new housing which is constructed on these sites.

Now in terms of the Negro question, we have had very real problems connected with the slum-clearance programs all over the country. Persons who had worked for a long period of time to acquire a house, a house valued in the present market at 10 or 12 thousand dollars, the Government steps in, through eminent domain proceedings, and takes it for 5 or 6 thousand dollars, they are unable to secure any new or

other housing because of certain conditions of the market, and racially discriminatory practices. You have many choice sites from the land location point of view, which are now designated slum clearance areas. Negroes are living in these areas and when dispossessed have no place to go. I certainly would urge upon the members of the committee that some protection ought to be put in this legislation to assure the persons who are displaced, through Government activity, a chance to get back into the houses on sites where they formerly lived.

In section 105 (b), we propose that there be a further amendment so as to assure that there shall be no discrimination or segregation because of race, creed, or color or national origin in any project area. Federal funds derived from the taxation of all the people can no longer be used to subsidize the iniquitous practices of racial segregation and discrimination. We would, therefore, further amend section 105 (b) so as to forever bar all purchasers or leasees, whether immediate or remote, of lands from local public agencies, from imposing racial restrictions on the further sale or lease of land or dwelling units built thereon.

To that end we propose that there be added at page 12, after the suggested amendment to which I have referred as section 3, a new subsection, to read as follows:

(iv) to themselves refrain from, and to secure obligations providing that all subsequent purchasers, leasees, tenants, refrain from discriminating in the sale, lease or rental of land or any dwelling units built thereon, against any person desiring to buy, lease, or rent the property, because of his race, color, creed or national origin.

Now just to put it in perspective, section 105 provides that Federal contracts for financial aid shall be made only with the duly authorized public agencies and shall require that the public agencies themselves refrain from discriminating, and purchasers from the public agencies shall also be prohibited from discriminating.

Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that requires too much explanation. It expresses the same general principle as the one I have indicated with respect to giving persons who are displaced first priority in the project area. Again, when the Federal Government, or the State government, comes in through eminent domain proceedings and takes, under the cover and power of the sovereignty, lands, it should wipe out, purge, and bar forever any and all restrictive agreements and practices relating to such lands. The sole purpose of this proposed amendment is to eliminate the type of thing which happened in New York City, when the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., enjoying the benefits of eminent domain, got possession of a tract of land, built a housing project and forthwith excluded all nonwhite persons from that project.

Title I also contains provisions for the protection of labor standards, likewise to be achieved by requiring appropriate provisions to be included in contracts for financial aid, made pursuant to this title. This is a sound provision and we endorse it. We believe, however, that it should be made more inclusive, particularly in the light of mounting industrial employment. All qualified workers should be given the opportunity for jobs in the building of new dwelling units in project areas without discrimination because of their minority racial status. It is therefore urged that section 109 be amended by adding on page