STATEMENT OF MAYWOOD BOGGS, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE OF THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF BOILERMAKERS Mr. BOGGS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee; my name is Maywood Boggs. I am the Washington representative of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers. My offices are located in the Bowen Building here in Washington. I am appearing here today as the spokesman for the Railway Labor Executives' Association, of which my organization is a member. For the benefit of the record, I shall list here the organizations that make up the Railway Labor Executives' Association: Switchman's Union of North America International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America. International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers and Helpers Sheet Metal Workers' International Association Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employees Brotherhood of Maintenance-of-Way Employees Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America National Organization, Masters, Mates and Pilots of America National Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association International Longshoremen's Association Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. I want to say parenthetically those are all A. F. of L. unions. On behalf of our association, I am urging that this committee report favorably the Hill amendment to S. 107. In the last Congress a spokesman for our association, President T. C. Carroll, of the Brotherhood of Maintenance-of-Way Employees, appeared before your committee and discussed in detail the views of our group. For any of you who may be interested, Mr. Carroll's testimony has been offered as part of the record of this proceeding by his representative. As recently as February 4 at a meeting of the Railway Labor Executives Association we carefully considered the whole question of our offshore mineral deposits. As a result of this consideration and discussion, our group by unanimous action reaffirmed our support of the oil-for-education amendment. You have heard testimony here today which indisputably establishes the need for assistance to our Nation's schools. We in the Railway Labor Executives' Association representing more than a million railroad employees urge you take action in behalf of the Nation's schools while there is yet time. I thank you, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. STATEMENT OF DONALD MONTGOMERY, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON Mr. MONTGOMERY. My name is Donald Montgomery. I am the director of the Washington office of the United Automobile WorkersCIO. The Automobile Workers-CIO wish to be recorded as strongly endorsing the statement of President O. A. Knight of the Oil WorkersCIO in support of Senator Hill's amendment to Senator Anderson's bill. We are mindful of the fact that the Republican candidate for President came out in support of turning the offshore oil resources over to the coastal States and received a gratifying response in votes from those States, carrying California and Texas and losing Louisiana by only a small margin. This makes the issue a very simple one, it seems to us. Shall it be oil for education or oil for votes? Or, putting it another way, whom shall these oil resources benefit: people or politicians? We stand squarely on the side of people and oil for education. Let me show why. A large part of our membership and their wives and children live in the State of Michigan. Part of these offshore oil resources, which are estimated as having a total value of anywhere from forty to one hundred billion dollars, belong to the State of Michigan. Michigan has a school problem. Its increasing population of school age is placing a heavy burden on every Michigan family by way of increased property taxes. We believe that Michigan citizens have a right to claim their share of the Government revenues that should be derived from this offshore oil, and they would like to receive that share, as the Hill amendment proposes, as an aid in meeting the increasing costs of providing Michigan children with an opportunity for a good education at the hands of well-paid and well-trained teachers in well-equipped and not overcrowded public schools. To show you how the proposed give-away of these oil resources will come home to our people, here are some of the facts about the school situation in the city of Detroit, where from two to three hundred thousand of our members live. In March 1949, the number of school children in Detroit was 228,240. Last fall the number passed 250,000, and by 1957, 4 years from now, it will reach 285,000. This is an increase of 57,000 children, or 25 percent, in 8 years. In 1949, the school tax in Detroit was 8.358 mills, or $8.36 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. It was increased in that year by 212 mills, to $10.86 per thousand. Despite this increase, voted 4 years ago, Detroit is not providing adequate educational facilities for its children. There are 2,148 firstand second-grade children attending school for only half a day; 6,156 elementary school pupils must be transported to and from school because there are no facilities available for them close to home; 21,914 of the Detroit school children are being taught in schools that are more than 50 years old, and 13,969 of them are studying in seriously overcrowded conditions. Another 6,500 children get their schooling in temporary frame buildings which must be replaced. Because of these inadequacies, the Detroit Board of Education has had to tell the property owners of Detroit that they will be asked ין to vote on a further increase in the school tax, to take effect next year, when the temporary increase of 22 mills voted 4 years ago terminates. It will ask them to raise this temporary increase from 211⁄2 mills to 41 mills and to continue it for another 5 years. Even this will not meet the full need. The board states: If no funds become available from other sources, the board feels that it will be necessary to ask the people, prior to 1959, for additional millage for another 5-year period in order to meet minimum requirements as now foreseen. What does this mean to the average householder? At an assessment of about 60 percent of sale value, and assuming an average sale value of roughly $10,000 for the homes of our members, the school tax paid on such a property was $50.15 a year prior to 1949, was increased to $65.15 by the temporary increase, and will be increased to $77.29 if the further necessary increase is approved by the voters next year. In addition to the school tax, this homeowner would pay for other municipal purposes an additional property tax of around $40 a year. This explains, in dollars and cents, what our interest is in these offshore oil resources. We believe that as part owners of those resources we are entitled to a share of the proceeds, as the Hill amendment proposes, to meet the increasingly heavy tax burden of providing education for our children. In closing, may I remind the committee that when I recite Detroit. figures as an example, I am describing a city which has done more to meet its school requirements than many other areas have been able to do. I use Detroit as an example, not to bring you the most shocking example of unfulfilled obligations to school children, but to make clear that we understand very clearly what the proposed plunder of our national resources means to us as citizens, as taxpayers, and as voters. That is all the statement I have. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. I might add that I have served on the board of education in a city not quite as large as Detroit-Omaha, Nebr. Where your mill assessment runs up to $10.86 now, we have double that, and we do not have any well-paid laborers such as you have in the city of Detroit. I think God will have to pity us if we cannot support our own educational institutions in communities like Detroit without getting assistance from other States. Mr. MONTGOMERY. We are not asking for assistance from other States. When we use the word "our," we are speaking of the United States. Our people believe that these offshore oil lands, as the Supreme Court has said, are for the benefit of all the people of the United States, and we think the resources of the United States should be used for helping us educate our children. Our children are citizens of the United States, and we are citizens of the United States. That is the way we see it. At least, I want you to understandThe CHAIRMAN. I believe in education. Mr. MONTGOMERY. Yes, I know; everybody believes in education. We want help in paying for it, out of our own resources-the resources of the United States. Senator DANIEL. Mr. Montgomery, would you be willing to see the 24 million acres within the State of Michigan under the beds of the Great Lakes, which have been held to be open seas, put into this pot for Federal aid to education? Mr. MONTGOMERY. I do not know what the possibility of that is, but I have a very grave doubt that that is involved in the passage of this act. Senator DANIEL. It is involved. Mr. MONTGOMERY. I know the argument that is used, but I doubt it is so. Senator DANIEL. If they have been held to be open seas, with that as an "if," would you be willing to see those 24 million acres put into this pot for Federal aid to education? Mr. MONTGOMERY. I do not know what title the State of Michigan has to those lands and what the history of them is. I know there are public lands all over the United States that became public lands under various conditions, and so on. I do not think that talking about that, about which I know nothing, has any bearing upon this question when the Supreme Court has told us that the United States has a paramount interest in off-shore oil lands. Being law-abiding citizens, we accept the decision of the Supreme Court. Not being lawyers, we believe the Justices of the Court or the majority of them know more about it than we know. They have not passed upon these lands you are speaking of. We do not know. Senator DANIEL. It has just this much bearing, that the Anderson bill, which you are supporting, would quitclaim to Michigan the 24 million acres under your Great Lakes, while all that we are asking within our original boundaries in the coastal States, the same type of land under water, is 17 million. I wanted to point out that under the Anderson bill you are supporting, you would quitclaim to your own State of Michigan 24 million acres, and deny to the coastal States, all 21 combined, only 17 million acres. Mr. MONTGOMERY. I wonder if the Senator would tell me how much oil for education might be gotten out of those lands under the Great Lakes? Do you know what the oil prospects are there? Senator DANIEL. Very good, acording to the reports that this committee has. And iron ore, tin, and sand and gravel; considerably good prospects for mineral production, I suspect as much as is being produced in my State right now. Mr. MONTGOMERY. If the question comes up to us whether we can get help for education out of the lands you are speaking of, we would face up to it. This other issue is before the Congress. Action is going to be taken shortly. We do not want it taken against our interests. I think that is clear. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. Mr. W. D. Johnson? STATEMENT OF W. D. JOHNSON, VICE PRESIDENT AND NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, ORDER OF RAILWAY CONDUCTORS Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, my name is W. D. Johnson. I am vice president and national legislative representative of the Order of Railway Conductors. I reside in Washington, D. C., and maintain an office at 10 Independence Avenue SW. The Order of Railway Conductors is the second oldest railway labor organization in the United States. The general headquarters of our order is maintained in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Our members are well scattered; therefore, some of them reside in each of the 48 States. The Order of Railway Conductors has over a long period of years actively supported State and Federal legislation and various programs designed to improve our educational institutions. We have not changed that policy in the slightest degree. Hence, my appearance here today in support of the Hill amendment to S. 107. We feel that the Hill amendment is a step in the right direction, and if enacted into law will prove to be of great financial help for the future welfare of all of our educational institutions. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that offshore oil deposits, also known as tideland oil deposits, belong to all the people of the United States. It therefore behooves us to preserve and perpetuate one of our oldest and wisest national policies, the use of revenues from public lands for educational purposes. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I most respectfully request that you render a favorable report on S. 107 and the Hill amendment thereto. That, Mr. Chairman, concludes my statement, I thank you very much for the time, but I would like to further state for the record that I have been authorized by Mr. Jonas A. McBride, who is vice president, to record the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen as supporting S. 107 and the Hill amendment thereto. The CHAIRMAN. Do you have a statement you want to put in the record? Mr. JOHNSON. I have just that authority, a letter, if you would like to have that. The CHAIRMAN. That may be inserted in the record at this point. (The letter referred to follows:) BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN AND ENGINEMEN, Mr. W. D. JOHNSON, Washington, D. C., February 18, 1953. Vice President, National Legislative Representative, Order of Railway Conductors, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: Because of the necessity of being out of the city, this will be your authority to represent the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen at the Senate hearings on the tidelands oil question. With best wishes and kindest regards, Yours fraternally, JONAS A. MCBRIDE, The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson. STATEMENT OF JOHN J. GUNTHER, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, AMERICANS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION Mr. GUNTHER. Mr. Chairman, I am John J. Gunther, legislative representative of the Americans for Democratic Action. Our organization is a political action organization dedicated to democratic purposes through action and education. Our national chairman is Mr. Francis Biddle, former Attorney General of the United States. Our committees of the ADA have gone into the legal question, and I think fairly competent lawyers have gone into the legal question and I do not discuss that again. I talked more about that when I was before the committee on a previous date. 30045-53-33 |