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Show "Horse Sense and Heart Sense" Needed THE housing situation with high rents is the most serious problem prob-lem confronting the government, lu he opinion of Secretary of Labor Davis. Da-vis. It is in just such a situation as Davis describes that congress and the state legislatures, under the Supreme court ruling, have the power to enact emergency legislation curbing rent gougers. Davis holds high rents the greatest single barrier to a- readjustment readjust-ment such as is essential to permanent perma-nent prosperity. "Because of high rents and inadequate inade-quate housing," he says, "families double up, sometimes two or three to a home. It Is not too much to say that the loss In morale and morals due to the housing conditions in many cities today is one of the greatest dangers to our whole social structure." The report of the recent state investigation inves-tigation into housing conditions in Chicago Chi-cago showed that 500,000 people in that city were living in the most unwholesome un-wholesome conditions, sleeping sometimes some-times three and four In a bed, five and six to a room. Reports from other oth-er cities hard hit by the housing shortage short-age and high rents show an alarming Increase in sickness and disease. In some cities the birth rate of illegitimate illegiti-mate children has increased 50 per cent. Davis has ordered a special investi gation of conditions in some of the worst centers. Federal investigators have been sent to several cities. "What we need in dealing with the situation," Davis says, "is not only horse sense, but heart sense. It Is not merely a matter of houses and rents, of dollars and cents. ' "Some agreement must be reached by the building trades and the building build-ing industries that will make possible a resumption of home building. "The building industry is the keystone key-stone of our entire industrial structure, struc-ture, and once construction work can be set under way again the whole employment em-ployment and industrial situation will be relieved. "Today, however, we have the paradoxical para-doxical situation where it is cheaper to travel than to pay rent. There are 250,000 people, it Is estimated, living in automobiles." |