low-priced goods. He is making plenty of profit at the present ceiling, he is making enough on that. Senator REVERCOMB. However, he is making a greater profit on fancy goods. Mr. LUHRSEN. He is making a seven or eight hundred percent profit on the high-priced goods. Senator REVERCOMB. Why not lower that? Mr. LUHRSEN. We have tried that, we have tried everything of that kind. We have said to the War Production Board-why don't you clamp down and do not give them the goods, do not give them priority unless they make the duck, that is all there is to it. However, we cannot get that done, I do not know who is manipulating it. Senator MAYBANK. I would like to know because I am on your side 100 percent as to that. Senator KILGORE. Mr. Luhrsen, the worker cannot make duck if the machinery and yarn he is furnished is for fancy goods. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Senator KILGORE. The only way you can get at that would be through an allocation of materials. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Senator KILGORE. What should be done is to allocate goods so that the workers would get on the duck looms or they do not make anything and then the employer will handle it and the worker will handle it. Senator MAYBANK. That is not such an easy suggestion. There are so many different types of cotton, you may have an excess in one place and debits in another place. In other words, cotton is not a stable thing, there are many types of cotton-you have Peruvian cotton to make parachutes, many different types of yarn. Senator KILGORE. Now, I will go back to the days of 1942 in the conversion program. As Mr. Luhrsen well knows, the automobile companies refused to convert to war material. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Senator KILGORE. The refrigerator companies would not make airplane parts and all that sort of thing. Mr. LUHRSEN. They were sit-downers. Senator KILGORE. Yes; by the control of material flow we forced a conversion, isn't that right? Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Senator KILGORE. The same thing can be done as to these other problems, by the control of the material flow. Senator MAYBANK. You would have to control thousands of cotton mills. You would have to control thousands of knitting mills, thousands of yarn mills. Every one works on a different yarn or cotton. Senator REVERCOMB. Do I understand there is one kind of cotton for duck and another kind for fancy goods? Mr. LUHRSEN. Yes; there are many different types, chambray, sheeting material and that type, they are all different. Senator REVERCOMB. I am talking about these two items, fancy goods and duck. Mr. LUHRSEN. Why, there is chambray, gingham, calico, the type of yarn you use in sheets, and there are many different types. Senator MAYBANK. There are hundreds of different kinds and different types of yarn, different types of cotton, that make different kinds of yarn. Senator REVERCOMB. It becomes a question of handling this by price control so that the manufacture of the other type of goods is not profitable. Why isn't that done? Mr. LUHRSEN. Let us take an example as to that. There was a shortage, and I guess there is yet, of heavy tires for trucks as they ran into flak difficulties in France. There was a request made for an increase in the price of those tires by the tire people and Bowles agreed to that. He said they were entitled to an increase as to that. But there was to be no increase for the private automobiles, civilian automobiles, here. Now, when that came back with an increase granted of 6.9 or 6.7, whatever it was, when it came back from Byrnes or Vinson, they put in the same increase for the civilian tires as they did for the heavy duty tires for the Army. Now, there was no need for that, according to the actual records of the O. P. A., yet that was done. Now, who does it? I want to speak up for Bowles, he is trying to do a good job there. Senator MAYBANK. I will say that, too, I think that Bowles was a very happy choice and is doing as fine a job as he can. I would like to mention something off the record. The CHAIRMAN. You may go off the record. (Discussion off the record.) The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Luhrsen, before we leave this, so as to make. your testimony consistent, may I ask you this question? Would you favor giving to the Manpower Commission statutory authority to enforce its orders, its orders being the same as it now issues on a voluntary basis, providing those orders were extended against the employer? Mr. LUHRSEN. If that is found necessary through compulsion in that direction, it should do it if the employer makes a fair profit, using the 1936-39 period as the standard. The CHAIRMAN. One more question: Can you defend compulsion against the employer if you refuse to accept the theory of compulsion against the employee? Mr. LUHRSEN. Well, obviously, the answer to that should be that I cannot. You cannot impose something on one fellow that you do not want to impose on another, that I would not want on myself. But I do think that the brains and wisdom of the Senate can bring about a certain obligation in making the employer as loyal as the employee is trying to be to win this war and not figure on huge profits, regardless of what may happen. Now, I think there is a way to get this employer who is not doing right. I hope there is. Senator KILGORE. Don't you think when we do invoke, shall we say compulsion, on the employer, it can be invoked in such a way that it would also handle the employee when the employee will not cooperate? Mr. LUHRSEN. Well, I do not like to make a man guilty or put a compulsion on him unless he first proves himself guilty. Senator KILGORE. That is right. The point I am making is this: If you say to the employer, "You shall not overman and you have got to cut down your personnel when you are overmanned", then you are automatically at the same time invoking the same restriction on the man but you do give him a choice as to employer, but it must be in essential industry. He does not have to go to work in a woodworking shop if he would rather work in a tin shop. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is all right. I do not want to have the employee immune from an obligation that I want to put on the employer if it will accomplish what we say is fair and just. Senator KILGORE. It is so much easier to enforce this by operating through the employer than it is by trying to operate through the individual employee. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is exactly the point. I think, and this is an answer to you, too, Senator, I think that the compulsion for getting done what we want done is necessary much more against the employer than against the employee, based upon the facts that we have. But, if there is a recalcitrant or obstinate employee who says-well, that law is just against my boss and to heck with anything else, I do not care, I am not going to do it-I say "no," I want to get him also to obey the law. That is the way I feel about it. Senator KILGORE. You would confine him quicker by dealing through his boss and finding out where he is than you can by trying to ferret him out as an individual in a plant of, let us say, 20,000. Mr. LUHRSEN. An employer will have some ten or fifteen thousand people and you know how quickly you can get the correct facts through him, what is essential and necessary, rather than consult fifteen or twenty thousand individuals. I agree with you on that, Senator. Senator MAYBANK. May I say something off the record? (Discussion off the record.) Mr. LUHRSEN. We, in the railroad industry, have discussed this. In fact, we had a meeting in New York on January 30, where we met, I would say, with 35 or 40 of the presidents of railroads, the big railroads, Pennsylvania, New York Central, New Haven, the Missouri Pacific, from all over the country, for the very purpose of trying to cooperate in working out our problems in our own industry so as to obviate legislation which they think is also objectionable when you put compulsion in. It just does not fit right with us at all. I think out of these conferences, and no doubt there will be more of this type, we will work out, so far as the railroad industry is concerned, our problems to the best advantage of the public interest. To continue with some of the examples I have given you as to overstatements of manpower requirements, for instance, at the Ohio Steel Foundries at Lima, Ohio, the December War Manpower Commission report for this company indicated a current need for 227 additional workers. The Army was furloughing soldiers to the plant. At the same time, the union at the plant reported through the War Production Board field staff that several departments of the plant were on a 40-hour week because of an excess number of employees. Welders were working only 3 or 4 hours a day. Now, here is another case, the Zimmerman Steel Castings Co. at Bettendorf, Iowa. At the same time that the War Manpower Commission reported this company needed 35 workers, that is, in December, the union reported that the company was laying off its third shift of 50 workers. The company claimed a shortage of common labor, but the union reported that the superintendent of the company was using company laborers in the construction of his house. For a period of 60 days the company was using skilled workers only 3 or 4 hours a day. It was transferring these workers to common labor jobs at the lowest starting rate instead of the highest permissible. In the field of shipbuilding and ship repair, the War Manpower Commission reported on January 12 a need for an additional 34,734 workers needed immediately in 117 shipbuilding establishments. Cutbacks in west coast shipbuilding alone have resulted in the discharge of approximately 15,000 workers during the past 2 months, and almost 60,000 additional workers will be laid off in coming months. Approximately 12,000 workers previously employed in 5 shipyards in the Portland area are now unemployed and available for employment in those yards; contracts are being placed and retained elsewhere. The War Manpower Commission report included a need for an additional 2,000 workers at the Norfolk Navy Yard, a need of 4,400 workers on December 29. These figures seem strange in the light of the recent disclosures about waste of manpower at the yard by a congressional investigating committee. That is where Senator Mead reported the making of chess boards and oyster tables. They have 600 military officers in various departments who know nothing about the machinery. Senator KILGORE. Incidentally, along that line, in my State alone, the Norfolk Navy Yard had 29 men in the field recruiting and taking labor out of our coal mines, which were very short of workers. I raised cain with them and had them reduce that number to 4 recruiters. Twenty-five of their workers were working right in the coal fields, and the thing I objected to was not only the taking of men away, but, due to the sales talks that they were putting over, they were dissatisfying the men who stayed. The CHAIRMAN. They were recruiting for what? Mr. LUHRSEN. I think I have put in enough of those figures. We have an abundance of them. It would take too long to put them all in. This is merely an example of what is going on all over the Nation. In the Voice of the People, hundreds of examples may be found with. respect to the wasteful method followed not only in industry but also in the military. For example, here is one from the Evening Star just a few days ago: Tired of polishing: In the same mail with my husband's induction notice we received a letter from a sergeant who has been stationed in Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana for nearly years. He is getting very tired of cleaning his rifle 10 hours a day and suggests that if anybody wants to investigate the manpower situation, the beginning should be with the armed forces. I understand that the Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, appeared before your committee on February 7. I do not know what he may have stated to your committee, but again I quote from the February 5 U. S. Labor Press Service release from page 6, this heading: FORRESTAL PRAISES LABOR'S PRODUCTION WASHINGTON. The brains and brawn of millions of American workmen, the thousands of factories in America, and the continuous flow of supplies to and over the Pacific have been cited by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, as permitting all the necessary elements of a vast fleet to remain at sea for long periods of time, stalking the Japanese and striking with terrific power. Secretary Forrestal referred to these efforts on the home front as part of "teamwork and integration of the highest and most detailed character." The article continues by pointing out definite characteristics of operation and winds up by saying: “All of these are necessary and each has played a vital roll in the tremendous drama of sea, land, and air which is unfolding in the Far East on a stage almost too great for any single mind to encompass all its action." Does the existence of such teamwork of the highest character and the vital role in the tremendous drama of sea, land, and air which is too great for a single mind to encompass, justify the enactment of compulsory legislation in the face of such descriptive language of the teamwork existing as late as February 5? What is this all about? What shall we believe and what shall we discount as truth? Idle words are not going to help win the victory. They confuse rather than convince. They destroy rather than enhance loyalty, patriotism, and morale both at the front and also at home. Why are the shortages of labor and, where they exist, not presented to you in basic fact fashion rather than in general terms which automatically eliminates all possibility of checking and counterchecking? Figures of all kinds appear daily where men are laid off temporarily as well as permanently. Why do not these military men cite you the causes why the men are not going from the places where cut off to the place where needed? They do not tell you that transportation facilities are not made available, seniority is impaired, pension rights are forfeited, and wage differentials are extreme. Those, by the way, are all managerial obligations. You cannot expect competent and experienced men to transfer from a dollar an hour job to one of 50 cents an hour, yet that has been the theory of the military by importing foreign labor while we had thousands of American men available. More recently we find that we must depend upon information from Britain's labor leader rather than our own Commander in Chief, while our own press is silenced and hushed. This secrecy applies also to our own Secretary of State and other important Government officials. The workers, yes, the entire civilian population, would appreciate much more getting our news with the cream on top from our own news facilities than to repeatedly receive it canned and dehydrated from "offside" lines. I doubt whether anyone can improve on Emerson's essays on truth. In but a short terse paragraph he covers a vast logic: Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs; it is the privilege of truth to make itself believed. * * The American people, yes even the worker, the latter who unfortunately is singled out as unpatriotic in the performance of his duties, will voluntarily and enthusiastically endeavor to magnify the drama so magnificently portrayed by our Secretary of the Navy when truth is permitted to excel. We earnestly pray for the defeat of this compulsory legislation. The need of this legislation is defended by the sponsors of it on the score that there are certain people that you just cannot reach. There is no doubt but what organized labor can be reached through the channels of organization. There is no doubt but what the railways can reach right down to the last man that has ever worked on a railway or who wants to work on a railway. That is an industry that is completely organized from top to bottom, both from the managerial standpoint and from the labor standpoint, and your testimony convinces |