Resolved, That no person shall be excused from attending and testifying before said Committee or before any subcommittees thereof, or from producing books, papers, contracts, agreements or other documents before the Committee or such subcommittees in obedience to its subpoena on the ground or for the reason that the testimony or evidence, documentary or otherwise, required of him may tend to incriminate or degrade him or to subject him to a penalty or forfeiture; but no person so attending and testifying or producing such books, papers or documents shall be subjected to prosecution or to any penalty or forfeiture for or on account of the particular transaction, matter or thing concerning which he may testify or produce evidence, documentary or otherwise, before said Committee or subcommittees or in obedience to its subpoena.

Resolved, That the further sum of seventy-five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated from and out of the contingent fund of the Legislature for the necessary expenses heretofore incurred and hereafter to be incurred by said Committee, to be paid on vouchers approved and audited according to law.

(4) Procedure of Committee.

Your Committee announced at the opening of the hearings, and each witness was advised, that while it would be impossible and contrary to all precedents of legislative investigations to permit witnesses to be represented by counsel, every witness would be accorded the right, upon the conclusion of his examination by the Committee's counsel, to make any explanation he saw fit bearing upon his testimony and that if he so preferred he might examine the testimony after it had been transcribed and might then return to the witness stand to correct, explain or modify it. The Committee went also to the unusual extent of giving advance information, wherever possible, to every person who might be implicated in any testimony given by other witnesses, to be present at the time, so that he would be afforded the opportunity of immediately taking the witness-stand in order that both sides could be immediately placed before the public and every chance of injustice thus avoided.

Witnesses were also invited to put such written questions as they or their counsel saw fit, to other witnesses in whose testi

mony they were concerned, through the counsel of the Committec. This privilege was frequently exercised.

(5) Scope of Investigation Under Enlarged Powers. Fortified with the enlarged powers extended to it by the legislative Resolutions of September 24, 1920, and February 16, 1921, your committee instituted a more thorough investigation of the various ramifications of the building and allied trades and the causes, industrial, commercial and financial, that contributed to the scarcity of buildings and the abnormality of the cost of construction.

Th causes disclosed by the investigation resolved themselves into the following chief classes:

1. Extortion, coercion, illegal combinations and other abuses by labor union officials.

a. Grafting by individuals belonging to unions.

b. Exclusion of workers from unions; fines and penalties;

regulations; customs interferences in respect to work. 2. Unlawful restrictions and regulations contained in constitutions, by-laws, rules and practices of labor unions and in agreements between such unions and unlawful combinations of employers.

3. Combinations among manufacturers of, jobbers, dealers and retailers in, building materials and supplies, to restrain competition, restrict output, fix prices and create monopoly.

a. Deliberate arrangement of bids on specific jobs; Hettrick and his aids.

b. Combinations between groups of employers and of same with groups of employees; Building Trades Employers Association; Building Trades Council.

"Open Price" Associations in Various supplies and materials.

4. Withholding of financing from building construction by moneylending institutions.

a. Fire insurance companies; their rates.

b. Investments of financial institutions; excessive charges; improper investments.

c. Investment in real estate mortgage; safety of such invest

ment.

CHAPTER 3.

GENERAL HOUSING CONDITIONS; RENT LAWS.

(1) Importance of Housing Question.

Of the domestic problems that confront the country at the moment that of Housing is one of the most critical and urgent.

It is estimated that the item of Housing represents about onefifth of the cost of living in all of the great cities of the United States. It is by far the most important of the items of cost. A famine in Housing with its accompanying invitation to extortion, profiteering and exploitation is therefore by far the greatest deterrent to any effort to secure a reduction in the cost of living. Until a condition of normalcy in that item can be restored no substantial general reduction can be expected. It is not only far-reaching in its direct effects but it indirectly inflates every other item that enters into the cost of living, for the reason that increased rents on business places must be added to the cost of everything we buy.

(2) Disproportion Between Dwelling Space and Population. Conditions in the city of New York, although more acute than in smaller cities, fairly represent general conditions throughout the great cities of the country.

Below is a statement year by year from 1910 to the present time, of the population of Greater New York, showing the increase or decrease in the number of tenements and apartments for each of these years, from which it appears that while the population from 1918 to the present time has increased over six per cent there has been a large decrease due to fire, obsolescence, demolition and conversion in the number of available tenements and an actual decrease for the past eighteen months in the number of apartments.

Year

1917

1918.

1919.

1920.

1921.

Jan. 1921 minus

1921.

381 minus 219 5,734,513 July 1921 minus 156 minus 209

The statistics taken in their entirety are startling and most discouraging. In 1910, when the population of the city was 4,766,833 there were 844,599 apartments available in New York city. In 1917 when the population was 5,276,351 there were 981,843 apartments available, being an increase of 134,249 apartments to meet an increase of approximately 624,034 in popula

tion.

The population in Greater New York as of July 1st, 1921, is estimated at 5,734,613 and there were then only 982,771 apartments available or an increase of only 923 apartments to meet an increase of 342,696 in population. As against an increase of 157,249 apartments in 9 years before the war, we have an increase of 923 apartments for the last 311⁄2 years. There have, of course, been more than 923 apartments constructed during that period but the demolitions due to fire, old age and conversion to business purposes had brought the net increase of available dwelling space in 311⁄2 years to less than 1,000.

From 1910 to 1917 inclusive there were net actual gains in available dwelling space of 16,570 apartments per year.

As against this it appears from the following table of the net increases and decreases of construction in apartments for the years 1918 to July, 1921, inclusive, that there have been actual losses from 1920 to the present time:

The sum total of these figures shows that construction fell behind 69,797 apartments from 1917 to July 1st, 1921.

From 1910 to 1917 an average of 24,922 new apartments were built each year. From 1918 to July 1st, 1921, the following construction in dwellings took place.

This shows an average of 3,642 new apartments constructed in the post-war period, so that the gross construction fell behind 73,832 apartments. The gross construction in 32 years fell behind 4,034 more than the net construction which, as above stated, fell behind 69,797. All these calculations are based on official figures showing a shortage of nearly 70,000 houses on July 1st, 1921.

(3) Abnormal Cost of Construction of Building.

With this astounding shortage in dwellings, there is a correspondingly astounding increase in the cost of the essential materials of building construction. The statistics of wholesale prices of building materials from January, 1917, to October 1st, 1921, compiled by the Federal Bureau of Labor show how greatly such prices have increased. Retail prices have more than correspondingly increased.

The United States Government uses 100 as a unit to indicate wholesale prices of commodities. In April, 1920, building materials reached a maximum of 341 while general commodities, notwithstanding the extent to which they, too, have been exploited in every direction, were at their highest point at 272. In December, 1920, building materials fell to 266 while general commodities fell to 189. In February, 1921, while general commodities were at 177 building materials were still at 222.

The following statistics are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U. S. Department of Labor. They show the index numbers of wholesale prices of lumber and building materials and of commodities in general by months from 1917 to October, 1921: