Organize to fight rent steal P
Inflation in Hungary has reached such wild proportions that
this young lady calmly lights her cigarette with a note worth
$210,000,000 at pre-war exchange rates. Will you please write to
Congress urging an adequate price control law immediately?
Or would you like this better?
THE CHICAGO
Published
Weekly
Vol. 1, No. 2
Senate slashes
new OPA to bits
' Ten days after OPA'S death a gasping Chicago watched
prices and rents go up in roaring flames of inflation, swallowing
wartime "prosperity" and threatening the framework of future se
curity.
' j£hHK 2P L*
The Chicago Star lost no time in getting into the light lor
price control. At the giant demonstration to save OPA in Chicago’s
Loop last week, Star supporters were on hand with signs and
posters and copies ol the Chicago Star.
Chicago, July 13,1946
jk I iHB
.
....Landlord W. Lee O’Daniel,
OPA-lynching Texas Senator,
calmly eats a steak while a vet
eran’s family his son evicted
pickets his home.
•^• 66 15 C
In Washington, Congress
worked cynically over the
wording of a new OPA bill
that promised to be as phony
as the one recently vetoed.
Back home, people in despera
tion organized their demands
for adequate price protection.
This Senate was set this week
to deliver a second unworkable
OPA bill to President Truman.
Passed by a vote of 49-26 was
a new OPA bill barring price con
trols on meat, eggs and poultry.
Despite the nationwide demands
for a strong OPA law which have
flooded Congress since the Presi
dent’s veto, more crippling
amendments were tacked on to
the new bill. Illinois’ Senator C.
Wayland Brooks again voted for
the bill.
Hamburger sold for 90c a
pound, butter for 95c. You could
still get it for less if you looked,
but on the “free market” you had
to look pretty hard. Meat, which
had been kept in packers’ freez
ers, suddenly appeared in stores
and packers openly boasted of
“killings” from $lOO,OOO to a half
million.
Immediately after federal rent controls expired, Mrs. Winnie
Willis, Miami, Fla., was notified her apartment cost $l,OOO per
month instead of $25. This was the landlord’s revenge for the
fact that Mrs. Willis had reported him for a previous rent control
violation.
A reporter's day
in Renters Court
By Richard Durham
In Renters’ Court the evictions grow.
One hot room in City Hall this week bulged with 150
families battUflg for room to stand and homes to sleep in.
The biggest one-day docket of
evictions fell to Judge Eugene I
J. Holland’s court.
On the eighth OPA-less day, J
on benches, leaning against the
walls and spilling into the halls
the tenants jammed -the court.
* * *
DEPUTY clerk Abe Goldberg
calls the roll and shouts:
“Newman versus Nicholas,"
“Eugene McGhee versus
Samuel Bolton,” “Jacob
Winnecky versus Edward
Kurt*,” “Wilferling versus
Katzenbach,” “The Reliable
Real Estate Company versus
Rachel Redman,” on through
69 new cases.
While lawyers unpack brief
cases tenant Frank Quintillo
stands before Judge Holland
and faces his landlord Mrs. An
gela Grande, 2119 Flournoy,
who owns the house he lives in.
* * *
MRS. Grande, the mother of
five children, says she needs
the building she bought at 5909
W. Addison street.
“I’m building a home” says
Quintillo. “All I want is more
time to build it.”
“How long will it take?” asks
Judge Holland.
Quintillo looks uncertainly
over the crowded room, unwill
ing to commit himself to a dead
line. He got 20 days to finish
the house.
* * *
“SOME vets come in to oust
other vets,” says Judge Holland
during a recess. “Some landlords
want other landlords out—it’s
a vicious circle. Since OPA
ended the cases increased tre
mendously.”
Next comes an angry landlord
who declares she has refused
to accept the rent from her
tenants and demands that they
be evicted.
“What’s the matter with
them,” asks the Judge.
“They drink all night,” she
says. “This man” she leans
(Continued on P. 2)
| HILLMAN DIES \
!*»;*'* T" » *s. s - ---
*
Wmmi:
' - ■
• :
Sudden death of Sidney Hill*
man, national chairman of the
ClO’s Political Action Committee
was announced this week.
Hillman, 59-year-old leader of
the CIO, died of a heart attack
in his summer home in Point
Lookout, N.Y.
Once the representative for
Chicago’s local 39 of the Coat
makers union, Hillman rose to be
come one of the world’s outstand
ing labor leaders.
His greatest achievements were
the building of the potent CIO
PAC and establishment of the
new'ly-formed World Federation
of Trade Unions.
Hillman served as president of
the Amalgamated Clothing Work
ers Union since its inception in
1914.