drawn along the lines of taxation, I have endeavored to leave it so that the collection of the tax could not be interfered with by the courts.

If you will take the bill which Mr. Tinkham first introduced, H. R. 10162, you will find in section 3

That the President is authorized, from time to time, to fix the amount of rent of real estate in the District of Columbia.

I am coming now to a criticism of those bills.
Senator DILLINGHAM. What section is that?

Representative JOHNSON. Section 3. Under section 3, the President fixes the amount of rent. Under section 4, that is contradicted by giving the President authority to appoint a rent administrator who fixes the rent. Some time after the introduction of the bill, I was discussing the matter one day with Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Bates Warren, and I called their attention to that conflict between section 3 and section 4. I see that in the bill they have submitted to the committee they have left out that conflict.

In the latter half of line 17, down to and including line 20, of page 3 of the bill to which I have just referred (H. R. 10162), in speaking of property leased, it says

Or occupied by any soldier or sailor of the United States, or by any officer, official, or employee of or any person in any manner connected with or engaged upon the work of or for the naval, military, or civil service.

That intended to limit the stopping of extortionate rents to those, and to those alone. I have already referred to the dependents that the soldiers might leave behind. That would not give protection to the dependent father, or to the dependent mother, or to dependent wife and children. The bill which I have introduced goes further than that and takes care of these dependents and protects them from extortion while their soldier providers are away.

On page 4 of the same bill, in line 7, provision is made that the rent administrator must be a resident of the District of Columbia. I can see no good reason for that. I can see many reasons why it should not be so. If a rent administrator is provided for, and he must be a resident of the District of Columbia, he should be and would be a man of prominence in the District of Columbia. He should be and would be a man of affairs in the District of Columbia. I have insisted, and still insist, that no man of affairs in the District of Columbia can be found who will have the backbone necessary to stand between the humble tenant and those who represent $400,000,000 worth of property. I can not believe anything else except that if a rent administrator is appointed from the District of Columbia, the purposes of the bill will be defeated. You are not going to find any man of affairs in the District of Columbia who is going to convict the thousands of property holders with whom he is to come in contact every day during the remainder of his residence here who will apply the cold letter of the law to them as it should be applied. Besides that, the United States Government is perhaps the biggest individual victim of this extortion in the District of Columbia. Why Uncle Sam, the principal victim, should be limited to the District of Columbia-to the 7 miles square remaining of the original 10-I can not understand. His vicinage certainly should be larger than this very small territory.

It would be equally unwise to have fines instead of a tax. I believe it would be unfair in the extreme to provide that a rent administrator should come from the District of Columbia. There is a clannishness here that I believe is unprecedented anywhere in all the country that I have ever had occasion to know anything about.

As I said a few moments ago, little by little all subsequent drafts of bills intended to meet this situation have tended toward my views about it, until finally I believe I hope, at least-that they will all hit the patriotic trail, as Billy Sunday terms it, and come to a measure that really has teeth in it.

The bills prepared, or at least introduced, by Mr. Tinkham, as well as the others, all have a retroactive feature in them. The bill that I introduced had, and still has, a retroactive feature. That has ceased to be unconstitutional in the minds of those who are behind them, for the reason, as I have said, that they all now have come to that feature of the bill.

I will ask the committee to take the bill which is before me and before each member of the committee, on page 4, line 21, commencing at the word "Provided."

Senator DILLINGHAM. Your bill?

Representative JOHNSON. No; the Tinkham bill, H. R. 10162. When you have that, I will read the proviso, and make some com

ments.

Senator DILLINGHAM. What page is it?

Representative JOHNSON. Page 4, line 21. It is in both bills, but it may not be in the same place in both bills. I will read it.

Provided, That any party in interest may prosecute an appeal from any order of the rent administrator to the board of rent appeals, provided for in this act, under and in accordance with such rules and regulations as may be made respecting appeals; and until such appeal shall be decided by the board of rent appeals the order of the rent administrator shall be superseded by the appeal. Superseded by appeal! That is a refuge that has always been sought by the great corporations, and it has found its way into this bill-that where an excessive charge was being made for light, or for gas, or for freight or passenger rates, pending the litigation the high rates would obtain. I am sorry that that has found its way into this bill, drafted by whom I do not know; but it certainly was not drafted for the benefit of the victim. It was put into this bill for the benefit of the one who is to practice the extortion.

The next section is section 5. I do not know how to describe it better than to use a new word that has come into the English language, that word being "camouflage." Section 5 reads as follows:

That from and after the date of promulgation of any order of the rent administrator fixing an amount of rent in any case, it shall be unlawful and be a violation of this act for any person to charge or receive a greater rent than the amount so fixed-

Then the joker:

Subject, however, to the right of appeal hereinbefore granted.

During the pendency of the appeal the decision of the rent administrator would be superseded.

Then, when we come to section 7, that provides that the appeal board of three persons shall be made up of citizens of the United States and residents of the District of Columbia. What I have said.

to the ministrator being a resident of the strict of vrtill more forre to the requirement at all

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174

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4136

relative to the rent administrator being a resident of the District of Columbia applies with still more force to the requirement that all three members of this board should be residents of the District of Columbia, or, in other words, within easy reach of the landlords.

Under section 3, which contradicts section 4, the President is given the right to fix rents, but there is no appeal from his fixing; but there is an appeal granted under section 4 from the rent administrator to the board of rent appeals. If you will read the bill as a whole, you will see that the right of the President to fix rents is overridden by all the rest of the bill, and it becomes the right of the rent administrator, subject to an appeal to the board of rent appeals-the high rates prevailing during the pendency of the appeal.

In the same bill, in section 7, the right is given to the rent administrator to repeatedly and constantly change the rental rates. I do not like to say that that was put in the bill for the purpose of pestering the tenant, but I can safely say that that would be the effect of it. The other day, when the subcommittee was having a hearing, and Senator Hollis was the acting chairman, he asked if there was anybody in the room who wished to speak for the tenant. There was an ominous silence-nobody spoke for him. I then counted and found that in the room there were 36 men present, other than the committee and the clerical force of the committee. Each and every one of them was either the spokesman for the landlord or was himself a landlord.

The man working for daily wages can be compelled to accept whatever rental charge is put before him, if his pocketbook will at all meet it, by the pestering methods provided for in each and every one of these bills which have been submitted by the landlords, no matter by whom introduced or suggested. Throughout all of these bills it is so fixed and arranged that the tenant would, day after day, be compelled to leave his work to appear before the rent administrator or to appear before the appeal board provided in the act, not for the purpose alone of first fixing his rent but thereafter of having it changed from time to time. The landlord living upon his rents, as the spokesmen of the landlords here have said, can do that. He can afford to do it. He has nothing else to do. But I submit that the man who is working for a daily wage can not afford to be brought before a rent administrator or before a board of appeals day after day. If the income-tax provision of my bill is adopted instead, then he does not have to appear. As said several times by me, the man who derives the income makes his own report. He is his own informer. The proceeding automatically goes on and leaves the wage earner, the tenant, at his occupation.

The bill that I introduced provides that the assessor shall do certain things. In effect, he is the rent administrator under the bill which I have offered, and the one which the House has passed.

Now, why the assessor? As I said. I first wrote the bill several times with the rent administrator in it. Upon studying it and reflecting over it, I reached the conclusion positively and certainly that it was unwise. Then I asked myself: "Who shall be selected and given the authority to exercise the necessary discretion?" I revolved the thing over in my mind for days and days, and finally I reached the conclusion that it should be the assessor. The reason for my