INVESTIGATION OF NATIONAL DEFENSE PROGRAM THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1941 UNITED STATES SENATE, SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE Washington, D. C. The committee met at 10:40 a. m., pursuant to adjournment on Friday, December 5, 1941, in room 318, Senate Office Building, Senator Harry S. Truman presiding. Present: Senators Harry S. Truman (chairman), Carl Hatch, James M. Mead, Joseph H. Ball, Harley M. Kilgore, and Ralph O. Brewster. Present also: Senators Edwin C. Johnson, Colorado; Abe Murdock, Utah; Mr. Hugh A. Fulton, chief counsel; Mr. Charles P. Clark, associate chief counsel. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Mr. Riskin will be the first witness. This committee has been somewhat alarmed at the falling off in production of copper, lead, and zinc over the last 10-year period and particularly were we somewhat distressed that the production of lead this year will be the smallest since 1926, I believe. It will be smaller than last year, and the production of zinc, while it is greater than it was last year, is still under the former production figures for 1926 and the years following that. There has been a gradual decrease in domestic production in all these strategic metals, and what this committee is particularly interested in is to find out what the cause of that decrease is and what the remedy is to get production back to the point where we can domestically produce the necessary strategic metals for use in the present emergency. We have got to have these metals to win this war. That is what we are interested in, to see that the war is won and won as quickly as possible. Mr. Riskin, will you take this seat right here? Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in the testimony you are about to give before this committee, so help you God? Mr. RISKIN. I do. The CHAIRMAN. Be seated, Mr. Riskin, and give your name and title to the reporter, please. TESTIMONY OF BEN RISKIN, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF MINE, MILL, AND SMELTER WORKERS, CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. RISKIN. My name is Benjamin Riskin. I am the director of research of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. I am stationed in Washington. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Riskin, you had a statement and an outline which you wanted to lay before this committee. I would appreciate it if you would put that before the committee as intelligently and briefly as you possibly can. Mr. RISKIN. I will be glad to do that. I have sent to you already a couple of copies and I am getting other copies for you now, for the other Senators on the committee, of a program for production of the vital nonferrous metals. This program was submitted to the President of the United States as a contribution of our organization in a positive fashion for the all-out production that is necessary for our victory over the Axis Powers. Our union feels that the time for discussion over what took place, over the failure, is past; that every American must rise to meet the dark emergency that confronts our Nation, our liberties, our lives. The American people must answer strongly and quickly the attack upon us. We must join with our allies in Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, and with all the other anti-Fascists throughout the world everywhere to guarantee the absolute destruction of the Fascist Axis. And in this fight, the battle for production assumes new significance. In the effort to outproduce the Axis Powers, to turn out the huge quantities of materials of war which will guarantee our victory, labor's role is fundamental. The International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers recognizes its responsibility to our Nation in this crisis. Even before the outrageous attack by the Japanese partner of the Axis upon our peaceful Nation, it had become evident that the democracies of the world were faced with serious shortages of vital base metals, the raw materials for war. The measures taken to date fall far short of the needs even of all-out aid to our allies; today obviously all past concepts of our needs, all past concepts of the sacrifices we must make, fade in the face of reality-we know now we must exert every energy, use every bit of knowledge, every production trick, to produce in quantities never before dreamed possible. Toward this end, our union has prepared this program and stands ready to participate in the true essence of national unity with management and government to guarantee our final victory, and we are offering this memorandum to this committee, as we did to the President, not as a complete panacea for the problems involved, but more as a new approach to this whole question. I would like to call attention to the fact that our own whole program discusses the industry on a national, integrated basis, because our union is the only national organization of labor in the entire nonferrous-metals industry starting at the mines, following through the mills, the smelters, the refineries, and the primary fabricating plants, and for that reason we see the picture on an integrated basis. Before going into our recommendations, Senator, I would like to summarize the broad measures already taken by industry and the defense officials. Generally speaking, there were six measures taken thus far: (1) The importations of available supplies, as from the South American mines; (2) sympathetic assistance to the industry's pressure upon labor to work a 6-day week; (3) curtailment of existing fabricating plants handling consumer goods, so as to save raw materials for defense needs; (4) large-scale expansion of fabri cating capacity for defense production; (5) the use of price increases as an alleged incentive to greater output; and (6) finally, loans to mine operators for expansion of existing properties. Of these six steps, broad approaches to the problem, only the first and the last steps, namely, the importing of copper from South America and loans for expansion of properties here, only those two steps really serve to increase supplies of needed metals. All the other measures clearly demonstrate a failure on the part of the individuals and agencies involved to get at the root of the problem-to increase production of the necessary metals. We find, therefore, curtailment of existing fabricating capacity, side by side with large-scale expansion of new fabricating capacityan obvious and absurd paradox; moreover, a complete evasion of the essential task of expansion of capacity at the very start of the industry, at the mine. "Put first things first" has become a well-worn phrase around the defense offices, but first things have not been put first in the consideration of this major problem confronting our Nation, and briefly, as an over-all attitude, our organization contends that prices do not mine ore and will not bring rock to the surface; that expansion of fabricating capacity in our industry will not bring more rock to the surface; curtailment of existing capacity will not bring more rock to the surface; and that since no other major approach has been made to this problem either by the Federal agencies or by industry itself, no more rock is going to be brought to the surface until and unless drastic and immediate changes are made in the entire program for production. More rock will be brought to the surface, more metal recovered, only if the miners, the smeltermen and other workers in the industry become an integral part of the whole production picture, and, therefore, basic to this entire discussion is the understanding that there can be increased production starting at the mines, only if conditions of labor are improved by the various means to be suggested to make it possible for men to produce more rock and get it to the surface. Now, our recommendations, Senator, cover some 27 pages, and I have a sort of brief of this which I will refer to, and if you and the other members of the committee would like further explanation, I will be glad to go into greater detail. The CHAIRMAN. We will make this brief of yours a part of the record. Mr. RISKIN. All right. (The document referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 332" and is included in the appendix on p. 4203.) NECESSITY FOR SURVEY OF EQUIPMENT AND PRODUCTION CAPACITY OF MINES Mr. RISKIN. In the place of the measures already discussed, our union offers the following basic points: First, we must have an industry-wide inventory. Strangely enough, over the period of time of the defense program, neither the industry nor the Government has assembled a completely detailed and comprehensive summary of our industry's capacity and equipment. Now, it is terribly hard to figure out how much copper you are going to get next year if you don't really know how many copper mines you can be working next year, and yet we find as a fact that there is no general agreement either in industry or in Government, no general knowledge, as to precisely how many copper mines can be put into operation immediately. We suggest that we must ascertain the number of mines in opera tion, the present real capacity of those mines, at full-time operation, the number of miners at work, the potential capacity of those mines if new equipment were installed, the availability of new mines. Such information has never been assembled, with the result that very little is known about the production potentials, and there is no correlation between mine capacity and fabricating capacity. Senator HATCH. May I interrupt you? Mr. RISKIN. Yes. Senator HATCH. It wouldn't be a great task to assemble that information would it? Mr. RISKIN. I don't believe so, Senator. Senator HATCH. Do not most of the mining States have their schools of mines and their geological services where they keep right in touch with that situation? Mr. RISKIN. Yes. Senator HATCH. I have before me right now a report made to the Governor of my State on strategic minerals in New Mexico, a very extensive report, and giving most of the information that you are discussing there now. Mr. RISKIN. Yes. Senator HATCH. And I imagine in most of the mining States you could obtain similar information. First of Mr. RISKIN. There are so many angles to this, you see. all, you have to determine what a copper mine is. Now, the Bureau of the Census uses a definition of a copper mine, and the Bureau of Mines uses a completely different definition of what constitutes a copper mine. The question is whether you are going to say that only the copper mines, that is, only those mines which the Bureau of the Census includes as copper mines, are to be taken into our National inventory, or whether all the mines that the Bureau of Mines considers to be copper mines are to be considered. One of the reasons we say that this isn't a problem of copper alone, or of zinc alone, or of lead alone, is that our industry, as you know, Senator, is a complex one. The ores are complex ores; you will have lead and zinc in the same rock, or zinc and copper in the same rock, plus other metals. Therefore, to determine how much more copper we can get next year it is necessary to know the actual production of all the mines whether they are considered copper mines or lead and zinc mines or primarily zinc mines or primarily copper mines, you see, because we want every possible single pound of copper, of lead, and of zinc. Senator HATCH. I am still of the opinion that if the facilities in the States were used immediately, the greater part of that information could be obtained without too much loss of time. Mr. RISKIN. I feel the same way; I agree with you. I am glad you stressed that point, Senator, because I don't believe that these proposals that we are making are proposals that are impractical. I think they are all obvious, simple things which if done will help us meet this problem. The CHAIRMAN. We have had some difficulty getting that information from O. P. M. I don't think O. P. M. has it, but I believe these agencies to which the Senator from New Mexico refers do have that information, and if it were gotten together we would have the answer to what you are stating there. Mr. RISKIN. That is right. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. Mr. RISKIN. I would like to point out that unless one has, unless our Government has, this coordinated picture of what the industry is, how many production units there are, or how they can be used, or what is needed to use them at maximum efficiency-unless you have these basic factors to work with, you are liable to get into an awful lot of trouble and pull a lot of obviously incredible moves. Now, I would like to give one instance of what seems to be absolutely unexplainable. Defense officials a year ago faced an industry situation in which our fabricating capacity, brass fabrication, was greater than mine output from both domestic and foreign sources under existing production techniques; that is, our brass mills could produce more brass than our domestic and imported copper and our zinc could meet; yet, without the slightest explanation of their action, the defense officials suddenly announced the granting of $35,000,000 to the brass industry to expand brass production by another 79 percent, adding to its present 95,000,000 pounds of cartridge-brass monthly capacity another 75,000,000 pounds. There wasn't the slightest indication of concern in this step as to how the necessary copper and zinc supplies would be found to produce 170,000,000 pounds of cartridge brass if we cannot even meet the present capacity of 95,000,000 pounds. The results were inevitable. By early October defense officials were forced to issue an industry-wide order curtailing the use of copper for consumer goods in more than a hundred different uses, and by October 23 the War Department itself ordered major curtailment of shell cases because of overproduction of this vital defense article in comparison with loading facilities. I think it is fair to assume that during November 1941, from our knowledge of the cuts in production, and the lay-offs, and the transfer to one shift instead of three shifts, not more than 70 percent of our present brass capacity was being utilized. The CHAIRMAN. They were doubling the capacity, were they? Mr. RISKIN. Seventy-nine percent new capacity is being added. The CHAIRMAN. And still we can't use the 100 percent that we have got. Mr. RISKIN. We feel that this thing is scandalous and inexcusable. We feel that shows lack of plan and is the result of no integrated picture of the industry from beginning to erd, and the capacity of one end of the industry as compared to the other. We feel, as we will point out later, that if the $35,000,000 were available from the United States for expansion in the industry, it should have been used where expansion is necessary, precisely at the base of all these operations, at the mines for increasing mine output, and we would have more raw materials. Senator HATCH. Of course, that is what some of us from the Western States have been contending. Mr. RISKIN. I agree with you there. |