AS YE SOW

Lying on Mayor Lyons' desk in the Cambridge City Hall there is a bill which, if signed by him, would provide decent housing for six hundred Cambridge families. The bill has been gathering dust on the desk since February when it was passed by the City Council, and today there is a very definite danger that the United States Housing Authority may withdraw the $4,5000,000 grant which will make these new homes possible unless the bill is signed immediately.

In the last few days the Cambridge branch of Labor's Non-Partisan League has been circulating a petition urging Mayor Lyons to sign the bill, It will prove to him that, despite his statements to the contrary, the people of Cambridge really do want the new housing project. In itself, the petition is a good thing, for it is a time-tried method of expressing public opinion. It will crystallize for both Mayor Lyons' and the public's benefit the fact that there is no opposition to the housing bill other than that coming from Mayor Lyons himself.

Seeing the cost to Cambridge to the proposed project would be exceedingly small--$500,000--in comparison to the advantages that would be gained, there is no possible reason why any intelligent Cantabridgian should not sign the city-wide petition. The project will bring not only jobs which will pay union wages to Cambridge laborers but business to Cambridge merchants as well. It will mean that slum areas which are now rapidly depreciating in value will be rehabilitated. Furthermore, the cost to the city of police, fire protection, health service, and delinquency control will be greatly reduced by the abolition of these slum areas.

The Taxpayers' Association has in no way objected to this bill; in fact it has voted for the plan all along. Certain members of the Harvard faculty have been active on this issue. But the main pressure has come from Central Square organizations which really want the housing project to go through. Mayor Lyons apparently is blocking the bill because it has, as one of the conditions of the grant, federal control of the project, and the Mayor is used to handing out political plums on jobs of this sort. It is up to the people of Cambridge to sign the petition and to prove to the Mayor that they want the housing project, and that they want it without plum trees. With the mayoralty election coming up next fall, it is hard to conceive of Mayor Lyons deliberately opposing the desires of the voters.