may have been discharged from the Army and gone into a Veterans' Administration hospital. So we extended that. Public Law 473, approved December 8, 1944, changed the former requirement of application within 40 days after release from training or service, to application within 90 days after release from training or service, or from hospitalization continuing after discharge for a period of not more than 1 year. There may be further extensions similar to that, in order that those men could be cared for or in order that it would not run against them.

We have under consideration right now whether the law in regard to reporting back to the draft board and getting the old job back is really the solution of it in the selective service. We find this: These men have been trained in the service, they are equipped and they feel they are equipped to do better jobs. They are not particularly interested in their old jobs in many cases.

Take

I feel we should endeavor to get them better jobs, if we can. the Air Service as an example. Many of those men have been trained and have become expert mechanics, they know a good deal about an engine.

Senator TAFT. There is one question I might ask in connection with that. Have you any difficulty in getting these men, the construction workers particularly, back into the unions?

General HINES. No.

Senator TAFT. Has the union agreed to take them back?

General HINES. We put several questions up to the unions pertaining to joining a union, back dues and seniority rights, and both organizations up to date are cooperating with us very well. Of course, they all have to go to their local unions.

When they go out to the locations there is the question involved of contract with the employer, what that contract provides, so it is not a simple problem. I can say that certainly the intent of labor is to give the veterans as good a break as it is possible to give them.

You will have many problems involving seniority. For instance, in some companies as many as three men have occupied the same job. Now, assuming that all three of those men come back, who gets the job? Well, right off, naturally, you would say the first man that was in that job. Now, there are certain seniority rights between those men.

The unions have indicated also that they are willing to consider the time that these men have had in the service as though they were on the job. That will help out a great deal in the establishment of the seniority rights.

Senator TAFT. How about their membership in the union?

General HINES. Nothing of that kind; no. So far the C. I. O. hassubmitted a report to me. We are analyzing it right now. That report indicates that their intent is to be very fair with these men; that the question of back dues of those who belong in the unionsand I think there are some 3,000,000 men in the services who belonged to either one group or the other of the unions-would not be insisted upon, and also they would be given credit for the time in the service, and that would enable them to come back to their old jobs and their seniority would be about where it would be if they stayed on the job. I have not found anything so far that would indicate that the unions do not desire to do the fair thing in dealing with the veterans. Now,

they realize, as I do, and as we all must, that we are going to have an employment problem of great magnitude. We are going to have a great number of unemployed during the reconversion period.

How well we plan-and by that I mean labor, management, industry, and Government-will determine the length of that period for which we will have unemployment. I have a great feeling, and a very strong feeling, that if we are ingenious enough to build up the great production machine that we have we ought to be ingenious enough to keep a great majority of our people employed..

Senator ELLENDER. General, have you had any cases where veterans were compelled to join a union in order to obtain a job? General HINES. No;. none has come to my attention. Selective Service has some question raised on that.

I think the Senator ELLENDER. The reason I ask that question is because I have had a few complaints in that respect.

General HINES. I think Selective Service has had a few of those cases. I have taken over in the Retraining and Reemployment Administration, Colonel Griffith, who has been with General Hershey a good deal, and he is making a study of this thing right now, with some assistants. I was speaking of the general over-all feeling on the policy of jobs by the labor unions. They certainly want to solve this, and I think they realize it. But we must keep in mind that we have a great problem when we come to readjustment of the pay envelope at the end of the week and when you go to reduce the hours. They will all go along on the 40-hour week, but then the question arises that they would probably like to carry home the same amount in the pay envelope at the end of the week.

Senator ELLENDER. General, I would like to ask a few questions with respect to title III.

General HINES. Yes.

Senator ELLENDER. Is it necessary for you to have a large organization in order to administer that title?

That is the one dealing with the purchase and construction of homes. General HINES. Not if the National Housing will undertake to make loans under 501 as they are making under 505, then it will not be necessary. Of course, we will have to have certain personnel to issue the guaranties. We have to decentralize that to our regional offices. We expect to set up more regional offices in order to carry the work out. Senator ELLENDER. I do not know what the Congress is going to do as the result of these hearings and as the result of other data that has been gathered in the past, but I presume if the Congress should decide to create a central housing agency to handle housing financing and everything else connected therewith, that there would not be any difficulty in the utilization by you of that agency.

General HINES. No.

Senator ELLENDER. In order to carry out title III.

General HINES. No. I think it would be a great mistake if we would duplicate in any place that which we have some machinery now to do.

Senator ELLENDER. I am exceedingly glad to hear you say that, General.

General HINES. It is my job to find out what the agencies of the Government can do, and then having adopted the policies on this, to make sufficient provisions in order to be sure that it is being done,

because the responsibility rests with the Veterans' Administration, and I cannot delegate that.

Senator ELLENDER. Well, you have declared in your testimony a while ago, and I was glad to hear that, that you are utilizing as many of the established agencies in housing and financing as possible so as to help you carry out this program.

General HINES. Yes; and I expect to have the rest of the National Housing Agency signed up very shortly. I think we have reached an agreement. One of the perplexing problems in this whole thing, as you must realize the Solicitor can tell you better than I can-was drawing up regulations that would not bump into some State laws. We are doing business in all the States and the District of Columbia, and they all have their own way of handling mortgages and mortgage loans.

Senator TAFT. General, may I ask one question? Have there been any proposals by private organizations, or otherwise, to try to colonize the veterans, I mean to build all these homes in a veterans' community?

General HINES. There have been some suggestions along that line. I do not feel that that would be advisable. If you look back to World War I, we have some examples in the rehabilitation program of colonizing veterans, and they were hopeless failures. I think the veteran on the whole, when he gets home, will not want to be taken by the hand and led around, but he will desire to have an opportunity, he will be looking for an opportunity, and he will want to make the decisions himself.

Senator BUCK. What possible argument could there be in favor of colonizing veterans?

General HINES. Well, it is generally based on somebody buying a large tract of land and splitting it up into small amounts and thereby being more economical to the veteran. The veteran will seek his

own environment, I am sure of that.

Senator TAFT. Thank you very much, General.

General HINES. I thank the committee.

Senator TAFT. Of course, if we have any suggestions to make we will consult with you before we put it in our report.

General HINES. If there is anything further I can obtain for the committee, I will be glad to assist in any way I can.

Senator TAFT. Thank you. The next witness is Mr. Mahan, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.

STATEMENT OF L. E. MAHAN, PRESIDENT, MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Senator TAFT. Mr. Mahan, roughly speaking, the Mortgage Bankers Association is made up of what type of operation?

Mr. MAHAN. Chiefly of life insurance companies, commercial banks and trust companies, and the individual mortgage banks and bankers over the country. Our membership consists of about 1,000 and practically all of the leading life insurance companies are included in our membership.

Senator TAFT. Do your members buy and hold the mortgages or do they sell them to individuals?

Mr. MAHAN. There are two classes of membership. Some sell, but in the main they are direct investors in mortgage loans themselves. Senator TAFT. I suppose a good many of the local mortgage bankers merely pass the mortgage on to the insurance companies? Mr. MAHAN. To insurance companies and to other investing institutions. Fraternal organizations and some of the endowment funds are also investors in mortgage loans. Many loans are sold to them by local mortgage dealers.

Senator TAFT. A good percentage of the total mortgage loans are held by individuals. How are those placed? Are those just negotiated between one man and another?

Mr. MAHAN. I find in various localities the system is somewhat different, but in the main the individual investor purchases his loan through local real estate dealers and sometimes through mortgage brokers. In many instances, a mortgage broker or a banker will represent an insurance company and will sometimes divide his business between individuals and institutions, and he may sell those to individuals.

In recent years the number of individual purchasers has been less and less, because there are not available mortgages for them. As you know, the Federal Housing Administration loans are developed for approved mortgagees, which are institutions, so that the large Federal F. H. A. lending system has more or less directed individual loans to institutions rather than to individuals.

Senator ELLENDER. Mr. Mahan, what kind of services do you perform for the membership of your association? Is it advisory, or is it somewhat like that which is made available to the members of, let us say, the American Bankers Association?

Mr. MAHAN. Senator, you are referring to what services the association renders?

Senator ELLENDER. Yes; that is right.

Mr. MAHAN. The services of the Mortgage Bankers Association. are chiefly that of bringing together all of those interested in mortgage lending, both the direct lenders and those who produce loans for the direct lenders. It is our purpose to try to improve appraisal methods. We hold clinics. We have a system whereby questionnaires are sent to our members. We try to assimilate information and data and in turn pass on the experience to the other members throughout the country.

Senator ELLENDER. I presume your association is maintained from fees that you collect from your members.

Mr. MAHAN. Yes; that is true. Geographically, I might state our membership extends all throughout the United States, both in small cities and large and includes both city and farm lending. In fact, the association in the beginning was formed by farm-mortgage lenders and later included the city group.

Senator BUCK. In recent years that has been rather restricted, has it not, on farm mortgages?

Mr. MAHAN. In recent years; yes. I will have some figures to show that, Senator Buck.

There appears with me today, representing the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, Mr. Dean R. Hill, president, Hill Mortgage Corporation, Buffalo, N. Y.; Mr. Milton T. MacDonald, vice president, the Trust Co. of New Jersey, Jersey City, N. J.; Mr. Guy T. O.

Hollyday, president, Title Guarantee & Trust Co., Baltimore, Md.; Mr. S. M. Waters, president, M. R. Waters & Sons, Inc., Minneapolis, Minn.; Mr. W. L. King, president, Boss & Phelps Mortgage Co., Washington, D. C.; Mr. G. Calvert Bowie, executive vice president, H. L. Rust Co.; and Mr. H. Loy Anderson, of the firm, Duckett, Gill & Anderson, Washington, D. C.

We appreciate the privilege of appearing before this committee and recording the views of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America on the subject of post-war housing.

The study of housing embodies wide and diversified research into technical, social, and economic problems. We do not find that there has ever been assembled what we consider a complete statistical study. We do believe, however, that at the present time there is more available information than ever before, and your committee is fortunate in having this material available. We particularly refer your committee to the report of the President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, 1931, and you have available the very comprehensive studies made by Mr. Miles L. Colean, embodied in the recent book, American Housing Problems and Prospects, published by the Twentieth Century Fund. You have also had presented to you at these and previous hearings the very thorough studies made. by Mr. John B. Blandford, Jr., Administrator of the National Housing Agency, as well as others. Likewise, there is the very valuable data assembled by the Bureau of the Census-Sixteenth Census, 1940and a great fund of data prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture, Farm Credit Administration, the National Resources Planning Board, and the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In Senator Robert Taft's letter inviting us to appear at this hearing he outlined the general subjects in which your committee is particularly interested. These were as follows:

1. Nature of the permanent Federal administrative organization of the housing agencies.

2. Disposal of war housing.

3. Problems of revival of the home-building industry, including relaxation of wartime controls.

4. Role of Federal Government in future public housing.

5. Types and methods of private credit aids.

6. Relation of housing agencies to the general credit policy of the Government.

7. Effect of veterans' loans on the housing picture.

8. Relation of rural housing and urban rehabilitation to the general housing program.

In touching on these specific subjects, it will be our purpose to submit to you what we consider to be the prevailing opinion of the membership of the Mortgage Bankers Association, and we feel that we should outline very briefly what this membership consists of.

The mortgage Bankers Association of America was organized in 1914 by a small but important group of mortgage lenders throughout the United States. It has been an active organization from the beginning and its membership now consists of approximately 1,000. These members in the main, are direct investors in mortgage loans and include practically all of the important life-insurance companies purchasing mortgages throughout the United States, secured by