There is no question about it that people who earn modest salaries can not afford to pay these rents. I have looked all over Washington, and my husband has done the same. One reason why we can not move is that I have to live in a building where there is an elevator. I have had 18 heart attacks in the last two years. I can not walk up steps. Also I have to be downtown if I teach, because I can not get pupils to come out. The pupils are men and women and they will not go to the outlying districts. My husband works until 11 and after at night four nights a week at the Young Men's Christian Association. We tried going out into the outskirts of the city and it costs us practically the same, because of the increase in carfare, and then the tremendous loss of time going back and forth, the loss of time on the street cars when they were tied up, etc. For that reason we were compelled to live downtown.

It is not an attractive locality. There are many negro settlements around us, so that our young daughter can not even go to church Sunday night without someone to go with her. We do not live there because it is so attractive. We live there because we have to do it and we can not find any other place to live.

Representative STALKER. What is the street address?

Mrs. BROWN. 1812 K Street. It is an apartment-house district. There are apartment houses around there, but to go anywhere you have to go through some of these negro settlements.

Due to the great interest that I feel--I have had about 500 men and women myself, Government employees, who have been my students in the last five and one-half years, and because of my interest in their condition, as well as my own suffering, I was interested this fall to help form the Tenants' League. I am secretary to-day of the Tenants' League. My connection with the Tenants' League in the last four months has shown that the people of Washington are terrorized worse than they are in Moscow.

Senator JONES of Washington. What do you mean by terrorized? Mrs. BROWN. Because these landlords threaten the people with eviction and they threaten them to put them out. They threaten all sorts of things if they appear to peep about the conditions. They are so terrorized that people ring me up over the telephone anonymously and send me anonymous letters as secretary of the Tenants' League, begging me to do something. Yesterday I got one from a Federal employee saying she was afraid to come here and testify because if she did her landlord would put her out.

Senator JONES of Washington. Did she say he had threatened to put her out if she testified?

Mrs. BROWN. No; but we will prove to you by some of the people sitting here that some of them are being punished for having testified before; some of the people who are being evicted to-day who have been before the rent commission and testified against their landlords. Right behind me sits such a woman.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know of any threats of this kind that were made if they appeared before this committee they would be evicted? Mrs. BROWN. Some of them have said so. I can give you this moment the name of no one who has, but I have been told that again and again. I have been told it again and again by tenants that the landlord had done it to somebody else and was putting somebody else out because that person dared to go before the rent com

mission and complain. Now that the rent commission is paralyzed, as it has been for the past few months, the landlords have taken this opportunity to serve eviction notices on persons who heretofore went to the rent commission and complained.

Not only is there terrorism but the buying power of the people is crippled. Look at me! Gentlemen, I stand before you with a coat I have worn for three years, and I made it myself out of a $2.50 Army blanket that I dyed black. When the people get to those extremities where they have to go and buy an Army blanket and dye it black they are in a pretty bad fix. This cost me $11 and I have worn it for three solid years. I tell you, gentlemen, that people who are honest and upright and law-abiding citizens should not be placed in a position where their salary can be gouged out of them for rent and they have to get along with what they can screw together to put on. How is a family to live? I am a mother with a child to educate. How are we to educate our child? We have a brilliant daughter, but how are we going to educate her on $150 a month? It is ample enough salary for existence, but it is not enough with the rent we have to pay. At $82.50 a month for rent out of a salary of $150, what is left for us to eat or wear or to educate our child? I mention nothing about any enjoyment or life. I am talking about the necessities of life. They are all taken away by these high rentals.

Senator COPELAND. Will you make it a little clearer about the efforts you have made to get another place?

Mrs. BROWN. We have looked and looked. We have been to apartment house after apartment house. We have had the same experience Mr. Reed had. Personally, as I said, I am an invalid, but even then my daughter and I-my husband is too busy to give much time to it-have gone to apartment after apartment looking for rooms, because I have to be somewhere where there is an elevator and we are told over and over again, "No; there is no apartment here," and then occasionally we find one, and it is $90 or $100-that is just the same as what we are paying, $82 or $75. I have looked at apartments they asked $75 for that were not large enough to turn around in or swing a cat by the tail. In addition to that, they were back where you could not get any fresh air, back on the alleys or on courts where there was no light or air. That is what we found time after time. Then, I have my classes, and I have to be somewhere near a car line in order to get people to have any classes at all to help pay the bill.

Representative BLANTON. You say you moved into this apartment three years ago when it was first built and you paid $100 a month for how long?

Mrs. BROWN. I think we paid it about seven or eight months, until the people got up in arms and went out because they would not stand it.

Representative BLANTON. You went in there and signed a lease? Mrs. BROWN. For that year; yes.

Representative BLANTON. At $100 a month?

Mrs. BROWN. Yes.

Representative BLANTON. Three years ago?
Mrs. BROWN. Yes.

Representative BLANTON. After you were in there about eight months your rent was reduced without your asking for it? Mrs. BROWN. No, sir; we did ask.

Representative BLANTON. You did ask yourself?

Mrs. BROWN. Yes, sir; I asked myself and plenty of others asked. Representative BLANTON. Then it was reduced from $100 to $82.50? Mrs. BROWN. Yes, sir.

Representative BLANTON. Were any of the rooms in your apartment furnished or did you furnish them?

Mrs. BROWN. No, sir; they were unfurnished rooms, and we pay for our gas, our electricity, and our own telephone in addition to that everything but the water.

Representative BLANTON. You will understand with regard to the threats that I am interested in finding out who is making threats on the tenants. There are in a city like Washington real-estate agents who are crooks. There are property owners who are crooks like you will find in every class of people. On the other hand there are some of them who are moral, upright, Christian gentlemen in the business.

Mrs. BROWN. I hope so.

Representative BLANTON. Do you not think it is fair to those who are moral Christian gentlemen to let the names of the crooks be known, if there are such? If there are landlords threatening tenents, do you not think we ought to know their names and who did the threatening?

Mrs. BROWN. Yes.

Representative BLANTON. I would prefer to know who they are. Mrs. BROWN. Yes, sir. We would be glad to give you those names. Represesentative BLANTON. I would like to have them instead of general statements that threats have been made.

Mrs. BROWN. But do you know what happens to a tenant who gives their names like that?

Representative BLANTON. I think Congress can protect them. Mrs. BROWN. But can Congress protect them?

Representative BLANTON. I think so. I will help to protect them. Mrs. BROWN. When you will come out in a signed statement that you personally will protect the tenants who come before you and swear to these things, then we can get the tenants to do it.

Representative BLANTON. I think Congress can protect them. Mrs. BROWN. We believe you ought to be able to do it; but, Mr. Blanton, we have been agitating this subject of rents for months, and all these beautiful real-estate men with their high moral characters that you allude to have not lifted one finger to stop these crooks. They have not headed off Maurice Baskin, nor any of those others that are doing these things.

Representative BLANTON. It is not their duty. It is our duty. I want to get a law passed that will stop that.

Mrs. BROWN. These real-estate people tell you that if you will not pass a rent law they will stop the rent gouging.

Representative BLANTON. I am going to vote for a bill that will stop pyramiding and put these crooks out of business if we can get a bill like that through. That is what I am trying to do. I want a law that will make an apartment be valued at its real value instead of five or six times its real value.

Mrs. BROWN. Mr. Blanton, you are not going to stop that unless you have teeth in it for the people who do anything like that. Representative BLANTON. I will vote for a law that will put them in the penitentiary.

Mrs. BROWN. What are you going to do to the tenant who dares come out and say anything? How will you protect that tenant unless you have a law that protects the tenant and some one to whom the tenant can go for justice? All we want is justice. There is not a tenant in Washington, I truly believe, and I have interviewed hundreds of them in the last four months in connection with the Tenants' League, who want anything but justice. I want to say to you that a more fair-minded set of people I never saw in my entire life than the tenant people of Washington. But they are scared to death. They are scared of the landlords. Those landlords have had ample time to stop this business. I am under suit to-day for $250,000 because I dared stand up for the tenants of Washington. That is the way they treat us. Mr. Lowe sued Mr. Reed. We are under suit for $250,000. We have got to go and hire a lawyer and defend ourselves in court. That is what we are up against. Do you think these tenants have money to go to court, to hire lawyers, to put up to defend themselves against damage suits? Is Congress going to stop that? Can you stop the damage suits that these landlords have started against us?

The CHAIRMAN. I think it is perfectly proper that I should make a statement relative to the real-estate people of Washington. I agree with Mr. Blanton that there are many very reputable, highclass real-estate people in Washington.

Representative BLANTON. Yes; I think there are.

The CHAIRMAN. Some of the highest class of citizenship we have. Knowing that, I sent for the secretary of their organization early in the session in December, thinking probably that some legislation could be agreed upon that would obviate the passage of any bill of the kind we now have before us. I suggested to the secretary that if the organization wished it, I would attempt to have passed legislation organizing and giving a charter to the real estate people of Washington and giving them power to annul the license of a real estate man, and let them clean house themselves. He admitted all that I suggested as to conditions here, that many of the apartment houses had gone through this system of pyramiding, and that there was where we find the vacancies. Among the real substantial real estate people of Washington who own or control apartments, we find few vacancies, because their occupants or tenants are satisfied and the service is good. The secretary was very much pleased with the proposition. He said he would call a meeting of the real estate people, which he did within a week. Word was sent back to me that they were not willing to go into any proposition of that kind. My thought was to give them a chance to clean house themselves.

Representative BLANTON. We do not have to wait for them to agree to it if we want to enact a law.

The CHAIRMAN. Unless they are willing there is no use putting the power in their hands. Unless they are willing to take the responsibility, no good would result.

Representative BLANTON. We can pass a law that will stop this crooked pyramiding.

Mrs. BROWN. Can you pass a law that will stop the pyramiding and give all these people justice, when the landlord shuts off their heat? We have no power in Washington. I see tenants here who have such a condition in their apartments day after day. They have been to their landlords for heat. They go to the District and are told that the District law says the landlord must put a furnace in the building, but he is not compelled to put a fire in the furnace. What are we to do? What good is a furnace if there is no fire in it? We want a law that will compel the landlords to put a fire in the furnace. Those are the things we want. We have tenants who have their water shut off and have no heat, no hot water, week after week. I had two tenants in my apartment at 11 o'clock last night who said they had been for days without any hot water. Nobody compels the landlords to give any hot water.

Representative LAMPERT. In addition to that, you want a law providing a commission that you can appeal to?

Mrs. BROWN. Yes; a fair minded commission.

Representative LAMPERT. One that will correct such a condition. without having to bring suit?

Mrs. BROWN. Yes, sir; without our having to go to court or to do anything but go before the commission and testify. There is no question about it that the tenants of Washington are fair minded. I do not believe any tenant in this city has slandered or been hateful to any decent real estate man. But the trouble is, gentlemen, that you have to look for a decent real estate man with a magnifying glass.

Representative STALKER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to hear from some of the tenants from the northeast and the southwest.

Senator JONES of Washington. I suggest that our time is limited and some of the other witnesses ought to have an opportunity to present something.

Representative STALKER. When we had our hearings a year ago, most of the tenants who appeared before us were from what you might call the good apartment houses in the northwest. I would like to find out as one member of the committee whether we have any trouble in the northeast or in the southwest.

Representative LAMPERT. We have had a number of witnesses here from the northeast.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course the committee wants to hear reports from every part of the city, but we will have to take whatever is brought before us.

Mrs. BROWN. Here [indicating] are some northeast eviction notices. Here is one by George W. Linkins, who is a member of the realtors' association, served on apartment 21, 320 B Street, N. E. Here is one by Max Rhoades served on 50811⁄2 Second Street, S. E. Here is one by George W. Linkins on another apartment in 320 B Street, N. E.

Senator COPELAND. Why were they evicted?

Mrs. BROWN. Some of these were to punish them because they went to the Rent Commission.

Senator JONES of Washington. How do you know that?

Mrs. BROWN. They did not ask any higher rent. They simply say, "We want you to get out."