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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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which is a substantial amount of money.

It deleted the provision for a college-classroom program, unfortunately, but it did include a college housing program.

Staff assistance was provided by the Research and Education Committee to both the House and Senate Banking Committees in connection with the preparation and passage of the bills. In particular, we were helpful in preserving the new program for aid to housing for the aged.

The bill was vetoed twice by Eisenhower but it was finally passed over his veto, largely due to the efforts of Sparkman and Johnson. There was no thought that this particular bill would solve the whole need of housing. The whole study of housing needs needs to be updated and there's a real lack of understanding among the public and even among members of Congress on housing, and no comprehensive study on housing has been prepared for three or four years, as of '60.

However, once we got the housing bill passed there was going to be no money in the bill for the provision that Johnson had fought so hard to get accomplished. So, actually, 50 million dollars was proposed, and in the House I inquired one morning as to how much money would be put into the bill on the House side. I was told that the House Appropriations Committee had put in five million dollars! And the bill was going to be before the Senate in a few days. I thought five million dollars wouldn't do anything for anybody in the scale of this nation, and





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