already had a reduction in the last 6 weeks since this discussion came up and since events in Europe showed the war would not be quite such a walk-over. It is a moral sanction, the affirmation of a study, and while numerically it may be small at the moment, in its application to specific programs it is most vital to us.

Senator CHANDLER. Some of these quits were men who were called by your draft boards and drafted into the Army?

Secretary FORRESTAL. I dare say some of them have been.

Senator CHANDLER. Into the Army and the Navy, too. Can you give the figures on that?

Secretary FORRESTAL. I think so.

Senator CHANDLER. The Norfolk loss was a net of 4,000 between quits and reemployment, and it is more than possible most of that number were actually drafted into the Army and Navy to answer calls of the draft boards?

Secretary BARD. Most of those people are deferred, in the navy yards.

Secretary FORRESTAL. If you were running a plant of 40,000 men and were faced with the job of training 26,000 turn-overs in 1 year and further considering we lost a lot of our best supervision early in the war, you would realize how tremendous that job is.

Senator CHANDLER. But they were lost to private yards where they could get more pay and where they could get incentive pay; they were lost to that other war work.

Senator O'MAHONEY. A lot of them went overseas.

Secretary FORRESTAL. I would like to put in the record some analyses of these quits.

Senator CHANDLER. I wish you would. It would be a good thing. Secretary FORRESTAL. I would like to sum up with three points: First, the west coast and the necessity of attracting and holding people there for the repair jobs we now have and may have at any day from losses and damages that may double the burden of those yards.

The second thing is this bill will aid our vital programs, rockets, heavy-duty tires, ammunition, carriers, and cruisers for the Navy The CHAIRMAN. It is all right to mention those things, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary FORRESTAL. Yes, sir.

The third is that this is insurance at a period in the war when we cannot afford not to take that insurance on a business basis.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Have your requirements been changed? Secretary FORRESTAL. You are speaking of our new building program?

Senator O'MAHONEY. Yes.

Secretary FORRESTAL. We have so scheduled that that we will lay down our schedule of orders to the yards in which those ships will be built, but they will follow on in the ways vacated by ships completed in August, September, October, and November next year. It does not add to the present burden of labor; it merely provides those ways shall not be idle, and again it is insurance because you may well ask why we need another 600,000 tons of combatant ships.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I asked that because it was stated before the House committee that as the stakes increased, the schedule of the production of war material, ammunition and equipment, would increase to the extent Navy demands came into the picture. Your answer is it is immaterial, an immaterial factor?

Secretary FORRESTAL. It is a moderate factor. It will not have a tremendous impact upon the manpower of the country, and it will be gradually extended. There will be some additions when turbines, for instance, are ordered.

Senator O'MAHONEY. But you do not foresee now, on the basis of your program an increased demand for labor?

Secretary FORRESTAL. In repair work, we do. That is unpredictable. It comes like a lightning stroke and has to be satisfied immediately. Sometimes these ships cannot give any break-down of the damage, and frequently the engineering officer walks off the gangplank and hands a bill of particulars to the captain of the yard, and that is the first notice he may have of the damage. It may run all the way from superstructure down to the innermost vitals of the ship. Sometimes you cannot conduct that investigation until you get to drydock.

Senator AUSTIN. I would like to get into the record some definite dates here relating to when the British act was put into effect. I would like to have a date which is more precise than "after Dunkerque."

Secretary FORRESTAL. May 1940.

Senator AUSTIN. I have a copy of British Information Services issued by the Government, an agency of the British Government, revised, 1942-Control of Manpower in Britain, in which appears the following, among other things:

The scope of the first Emergency Powers Defense Act, August 24, 1939, are greatly extended by the second act, May 22, 1940, which gave the Government power to make defense regulations "requiring persons to place themselves, their services and their property, at the disposal of His Majesty.'

I think we should have a precise date there to make whatever argument we please from it.

Senator CHANDLER. Mr. Chairman, before Mr. Secretary Forrestal concludes

Secretary FORRESTAL. I would like to say one thing, Senator.

I happen to have here some notes of a meeting of the Production Executive Committee which Admiral Robinson handed me yesterday, and one of the items is "Philadelphia needs 25,000 workers." That is just one item, for the city of Philadelphia.

Senator HILL. Do you mean at the present time?

Secretary FORRESTAL. Yes, sir.

Another item: "Steel production is going down steadily due to labor shortage; will be accentuated by the 26-29 draft."

Another item: "January truck production was below that of December."

Another item: "Hospital ships are behind schedule."

"Steel industry on the 'must' list."

"Aluminum extrusions, brass rod and strip on 'must' list."

Senator MAYBANK. You have charge of building hospital ships

both for the Navy and the Army, too?

Secretary FORRESTAL. I do not think so.

Senator MAYBANK. They build their own?

Secretary FORRESTAL. I think they build some of their own; I would like to check that.

Senator CHANDLER. Off the record.

(Discussion was had outside the record.)

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Do you have any desire to go on now, Secretary Bard?

STATEMENT OF HON. RALPH A. BARD, UNDER SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

Secretary BARD. There is one thing I would like to say, and then I am through, unless you want detailed figures.

I think there has been a misconception in a good many places about the operation of this bill if it is passed. There has been a good deal of talk about compulsion, the feeling that men will be taken out of their businesses, that their grocery stores will be closed, and all of that, and that it will make for disruption in community affairs. My personal viewpoint is if this bill is passed, I have absolute confidence that the American people, when their own representatives in Congress tell them of a need, that they will have so many volunteers to do this job that there will be practically no instance of compulsion. Senator AUSTIN. May I ask a question?

Secretary BARD. Yes, sir.

One

Senator AUSTIN. Take as a practical illustration, two gentlemen living on the same street, side by side, close neighbors engaged in similar occupations and relative social status exactly the same. of them feels impelled, without any liability being expressed by his Government, to go into a plant, but he sees his neighbor who does not feel that impulsion continue in his regular relative status. Would not that whole question of equality of liability be determined by this bill?

Secretary BARD. This bill specifically tells the people not to leave the work they are doing now until someone tells them they are needed. We have here the applications which show that just talking about this bill has doubled the number of them. Nearly 100,000 men got the idea they were really needed; they did not have it before, and if Congress will tell the people of the United States that some of them are needed, I do not think you are going to have but very few instances of any compulsion.

Senator CHANDLER. If we can just talk about it long enough, then it will not be necessary to pass the bill, and since we can talk longer than anybody any other place in the world, if you are certain it will do that, I will talk until we obtain the objectives of the bill so we will not have to pass it.

Secretary BARD. But that does not attain the other objective of keeping the people on the job.

Senator CHANDLER. We can do that with a freeze bill. If it is a situation that just requires freezing them in their jobs, you would have less trouble.

Secretary BARD. Let us say they need a certain number of men in the Philadelphia area and the draft boards are told how many people they need, and the numbers are allocated between the different draft boards and they are voluntarily told that need to start with. When it comes to the question of the voluntary, those will take care of themselves, but in the case of those who fail to volunteer, then those people are going to be picked up by their neighbors and others in the draft-board area, because they know what they are doing, and if a fellow is waiting on a table or working in a pool hall or carrying bags

around a hotel, those are the people the draft boards are going to take, and you only need a comparatively small percentage of the people who are available.

Probably nobody has any definite idea of the figures on the number of people between 18 and 45 that are available, but I believe the figure of 10,000,000 has been mentioned.

Secretary FORRESTAL. 22,000,000, is it not?

Secretary BARD. Of course, a lot of them are already employed. Secretary FORRESTAL. 10,000,000 available?

Secretary BARD. Yes, who are in nonessential activity.

Now, if that is the case, you would only have to call for 20 percent of the people who are in nonessential activity, and I think our needs will be supplied in great measure on a voluntary basis, and I do not believe a great percentage of the people who are carrying on their business or who are in jobs of importance to the community will be disturbed at all, because the people who are going to choose the ones to be taken are their own neighbors and they know when they are not doing anything of material benefit to the war.

So, as I visualize the operation of the thing, the great thing is for Congress to tell the people of the need, and when that is done I think the job is 90-percent completed.

Now, as to compulsion or arresting people, as I see it, you will never reach that stage. If what you say is true, Senator O'Mahoney, all our people have to do is to recognize the necessity and the need and you will no longer have the problem.

Senator O'MAHONEY. How does the Navy E work? You award it to industrial plants?

Secretary BARD. Yes.

Senator O'MAHONEY. What has been the effect of that policy? Secretary BARD. It has a morale effect. When they get it there is a lot of enthusiasm, and they do not like to lose it.

Secretary FORRESTAL. The best way to find out about that is to try to take it away from them; they definitely do not like it. Senator O'MAHONEY. What individual recognition is given? Secretary BARD. Each man has a button with the E.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Do you issue anything like a certificate of merit?

Secretary BARD. We honor certain employees at each ceremony, sometimes the oldest employee or some man with an extraordinary record, but we leave that to the companies.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Suppose we were to create an organization, as it were, of, let us call them "Industrial War Producers of America"I am just thinking aloud-and the Army and Navy should issue a certificate of merit in such an organization to individuals based upon the amount of time spent in war plants, 6 months or a year or 2 years; in other words, I am thinking of a positive reward in the form of a certificate which each war worker could put up in his home, but based only upon merit.

Secretary FORRESTAL. We gave a lot of consideration to that, and I would like to have some such system, but it is not easy to work out to the point where it retains the significance that you are after. The award of the E that those men get, they are very proud of. The working out of such a plan as this, however, would have a lot of detail.

Secretary BARD. There would be thousands and thousands who could not get a certificate; you could not give them all certificates, and they would be more dissatisfied than ever. If they could not get a certificate in the plant they were in because of absenteeism, and so on, that might increase the turn-over.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I wish you would give some thought to that.

Secretary FORRESTAL. It is worth exploration. It is an extension of the E idea.

Secretary BARD. Many plants do that. They all have their own systems.

Senator O'MAHONEY. But I am thinking in terms, perhaps, of the Congress of the United States. I doubt whether we have sufficiently emphasized that modern war is fought in the factory almost as much as it is in the field, because the field could not be sustained and the Navy abroad could not be sustained without the industrial output. It is an essential factor.

Secretary FORRESTAL. It is what has enabled us to fight the kind of war with the speed we have fought it on three or four fronts throughout the world; there is no question about that.

Senator HILL. Mr. Bard, I think we should have all of the figures you have in the record.

Secretary BARD. I have seven or eight pages of detailed information about specific needs and specific programs and some instances of where our production of ships has been affected.

Secretary FORRESTAL. Why not put it in?

Secretary BARD. I can either put it in the record or will come back and give it to you.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you look it over and submit what you wish?
Secretary BARD. Yes, sir; I will look it over.

Senator HILL. I think it is impressive, Mr. Secretary.

(For statement referred to, see end of proceedings of this meeting.) The CHAIRMAN. It is now practically half past 12.

Mr. Paul McNutt will come this afternoon.

Off the record.

(Discussion was had outside the record.)

Senator BURTON. I would like to call attention to section 6 of the bill, which makes applicable to these people who volunteer, or are ordered into essential work, the provisions of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act, excepting those relating to insurance, mortgages, taxes, and lawsuits. It only makes them applicable to those who are volunteering into the service but not those frozen into the service. I wonder if you feel there would be sufficient value in that going in there since they are not soldiers or sailors, to justify the discrimination that arises from that?

Secretary FORRESTAL. I think that is a good question and a good point.

Secretary BARD. It does not apply to those frozen in.

Senator BURTON. If it applies merely to those who volunteer or are ordered in, the question arises whether they are needed or not. They are not in the Army or Navy. It would suspend their taxes, while it would not do so for the man who may be frozen there. The question of discrimination arises. You do not include the man who is frozen in; how about the man who is not ordered into the service