Sabotaged Housing

Some of President Eisenhower's appointments have been good, some have been debatable; but it was not until this past week that he came up with an appointment closely akin to sabotage. The new head of the public housing program is one of the most dogged opponents of public housing in the country.

No one can say Representative Albert M. Cole, new head of the Housing and Home Finance Bureau, lacks the courage of his convictions. He has expounded them in Congress and at banquets of Real Estate Associations for many years. To the Senate Committee scrutinizing his confirmation, he proudly recited his votes against the Taft-Ellender-Wagner Housing Act, keystone of our public housing policy. Even Senator Taft, no wastrel in the housing field, says "he would have preferred a man who had taken no position" on his law.

The appointment seems strange behavior by an Administration that has been most careful to weed out of the government officials whose work might be hampered by disagreement with policy. Last week, two thousand Democrats were cut from the Civil Service, a prelude to dismissal for just this reason. There may merit in this practice, but if so, it should at least be consistent.

Public housing has done much to relieve the housing pinch in the years after the war. It cleared slums, built rural units and loaned funds to veterans to finance their own homes. Most important, it incubated a host of state and local projects, which have prospered with only technical advice and little interference from the federal government. Senate committee hearings in 1950 showed substantial satisfaction with the public housing program from both sides of the aisle.

The only yelps, in fact, have gone up from the builders. Opposing the program from its infancy in the depression, groups like the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Home Builders have perennially contributed to Republican campaign coffers so they could some day help select the housing chief. Cole is one of their favorites.

We believe that government-sponsored housing projects and the climate a dynamic federal agency gives to local governments is a healthy thing, simply because there are fifteen million Americans living in homes judged sub-standard and more houses eroding each year. We do not expect the Administration to expand the program, simply because it is against its expressed philosophy of government. But, from the men who seemed sincere about "not turning back the clock," at least a sympathetic administration of the present program could be expected.