The President approved expenditure of an additional $450,000,000 on the weirdest structure on the whole New Deal lotthe defense-housing program. Lopsided, haphazard, covered with cupolas and gimcracks, the program already looks like a Gothic gazebo conceived during a half-mad architect's nightmare.
From its cellar up, it is improvised. It began in a small way under the supervision of the U.S. Housing Authority. Then Congress took a hand. In October 1940, Congress began appropriating for a real, bang-up, nationwide defense-housing program. Federal Works Agency Administrator John Carmody, whose agency was picked to handle...