taxes more money than the training has cost because of the increased skills and earning capacity. This program after having been so successful should not be abandoned. There has been an outstanding record of adjustment to civilian life among ex-GI's, made possible by veterans' benefits. Educational opportunities provided peacetime draftees and volunteers will enable the individual to connect learning with life and make possible repayment of the capital invested in them. Earning power will be increased, standards of living will be raised, a productive contribution will be made to the Nation and will result in a great responsibility toward and appreciation of the land in which we live. I supported the World War II GI bill of rights and I urge the committee to report this legislation for which there is an increasing demand. Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Carnahan. Mr. Burgess, I believe you will be the next witness, and I believe you are accompanied by Dr. Stanford and Mr. Ballantyne. STATEMENT OF CARTER L. BURGESS, MEMBER, NATIONAL DEFENSE COMMITTEE, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES Mr. BURGESS. I am afraid, like the committee, Mr. Chairman, that I am the only person present, because of the weather conditions this morning. Mr. QUIGLEY. You are to be congratulated for making it. I regret to say Mr. Teague, the chairman, is on the sick list. Mr. QUIGLEY. We are glad to have you here and hope, even though we are few in number, our interest is still very much alive and keen. Mr. BURGESS. Chairman Quigley and members of the Committee, if it is your pleasure I have a 5-minute statement which I would like to give and if at any time you wish to stop me, I am quite prepared for that. My name is Carter L. Burgess. I appear on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States as a member of its national defense committee. I am also past Assistant Secretary for Manpower of the Department of Defense. To have appeared with me today was Dr. Henry King Stanford, president of Birmingham-Southern College, but I will have to ask that his statement be filed on behalf of the chamber. Together we were to be here to discuss S. 1138 and similar legislation now before this committee and to state for you the national chamber's position on such legislation. I would like to discuss S. 1138 and similar legislation now before this committee, and state the national chamber's position on such legislation. I would like to discuss the effect of this legislation on the armed services. Dr. Stanford's statement will deal with the effect of such programs on our institutions of higher learning, the questionable need for a program of educational and vocational training for peacetime vet erans, the cost of the programs, and the undesirability of establishing a precedent for such a program. The national chamber opposes enactment of S. 1138, authorizing educational benefits for purely peacetime military service, because the proposed benefits are unnecessary, cannot be justified, and would not be in the Nation's best interest. We take this position for the following reasons: (1) Service to one's country is a citizen's obligation that should be performed willingly. (2) Because of the rapidly increasing pool of draft-age manpower, and the diminishing military manpower requirements, any young man who really wants a college education can count on completing his studies before having to enter military service. In fact, the armed services cannot now utilize all of the available manpower. So thousands of young men may be required to complete only 6 months of active duty and many young men will not have to serve at all. (3) The Reserve Forces Act of 1955 provides for over 30 different ways whereby a young man can fulfill his military obligations. I might just veer there for a minute to state that in my time before the various committees of this Congress, the Congress in those years that I happened to have the pleasure of serving in Washington provided many of those choices, which if undertaken at the right time. in a young man's life would fully provide him with a plan to work out his education and to get on about the other aspects of his private life. So I think the Congress has done a good job with the Defense Department in providing him a convenient way by which a young man can undertake military service. Most of these various options available make it possible for a young man to complete his college education before rendering service. (4) Most important of all, the proposed benefits would encourage many young men to leave military service in order to take advantage of them. This would impede the efforts of Congress and the Defense Department to increase the attractiveness of military service as a career and to improve the reenlistment rate of the enlisted technicians who are so vital in our space and defense forces. It should be remembered that the current cutoff date (January 31, 1955) for eligibility for the very liberal educational benefits authorized for Korean war benefits was established primarily because a survey disclosed that a very large percentage of the enlisted personnel leaving the services at that time were doing so in order to take advantage of the educational benefits. If I might leave my statement again, gentlemen, my memory seems to recall to me that when the breakoff date for those Korean benefits was announced as January 31, 1955, the word got around the country that a man could enlist before January 31 and still enjoy the benefits that would be available up to that date. I asked the Defense Department last night to give me the initial voluntary enlistment rates for January 1954, January 1955, which was the month just prior to that final date, and the enlistment for February 1955, which was after the date. If I may give those figures to this committee, in January 1954 initial voluntary enlistments for the month were 38,000; in January 1955, which was the last month before the cutoff date the number was 68,000; and in February 1955, which was the first month after the cutoff date, voluntary enlistments were 24,000. I submit those figures as ones given to me by the Defense Department and which validate my memory that a lot of young men elected to get into the services to get a benefit which was going to be an attraction for them to leave at the end of that first term of enlistment. Now, to go back to my statement. The President of the United States, in his budget message for 1961, said: One additional benefit should be added, in accord with my earlier recommendations: a program of vocational rehabilitation for those with substantial service-connected disabilities. On the other hand, I oppose the establishment of special educational and loan guarantee programs for peacetime ex-servicemen. The National Chamber of Commerce supports the views of the President. As a past Assistant Secretary for Manpower in the Department of Defense, I have been tremendously impressed and heartened by the July 1959 report of the Department of Defense titled "Recent Enlisted Personnel Trends," and I have studied that report, which I have with me. This report cites the major personnel accomplishments recently achieved by the Department of Defense and I might add again to my statement, only with the help and support of the Congress, which provided the basic legislation-which include improved recruitment, higher reenlistment rates, an increased experience level, better mental quality, and fewer disciplinary cases. It is a gratifying report, and represents the effect of the action the Congress has taken in enacting the military pay bill of 1958, granting the authority to raise induction standards in Public Law 85-564, and in enacting many other pieces of legislation in the general neighborhood of those two dates. These actions on the part of the Congress enabled the Department. of Defense to improve enlistment and retention standards, accomplish early release of low-potential personnel, and to enlarge its retraining and education programs. The wide range of programs undertaken by the Department of Defense in the past several years to strengthen the quality and experience level of the military force is already bearing fruit, as reflected in the increasing reenlistment trend in all services. It is most important to avoid new legislation-and I would like to emphasize this new legislation which could undermine the efforts of the armed services to build an efficient military force having welltrained and experienced personnel required to fight with today's highly complex weapons. Despite the marked improvement in reenlistment rates as an average, reenlistment rates in certain technical and combat leadership skills have been below the optimum rates required. Gentlemen, if I might add, I think that will be the case for a long time to come. The services are doing everything possible to correct imbalances in the skills structure. Programs for retraining and reassignment of qualified career personnel from surplus to shortage skills are under way. The program of enlisted proficiency payments concentrated in the technical and leadership skills is helping to reduce the shortages in these areas. I might add for the committee's information that I was Vice Chairman of the Cordiner Committee which proposed that legislation to the Congress. Improved retention rates, as to both quality and quantity, is the major goal of the armed services in dealing with their personnel situation. The provisions of S. 1138, and similar proposed legislation, which would put a premium on not reenlisting, would worsen the heart of the recruitment problem: to maintain adequate retention rates in the skilled and leadership groups. This legislation would have an overall bad effect on the entire career incentive program, which over the years has been carefully built up, and has to date brought great improvement to the quality and strength of the Armed Forces. I would really regret to see the concept of service to one's countrywhich, today, is considered to be a citizenship obligation, willingly accepted-be impaired by legislation that would imply that military service is to be a necessary exchange for a free college education and other benefits. As to educational benefits-as you know, peacetime servicemen at present enjoy training and educational opportunities while in service which were not available to wartime soldiers. In peacetime the armed services are primarily in the business of educating and training personnel, and this training includes academic and vocational work. We are spending half of a billion dollars a year to support service schools in this country. The Government, in addition, bears most of the cost of the educational and vocational training which hundreds of thousands of servicemen participate in. Additionally, in the Army last year 51,000 soldiers completed residence courses under the U.S. Armed Forces Institute in order to obtain high school diplomas, college credit, or additional vocational proficiency. One situation which brings to light the impact that this legislation would have occurred during the Korean conflict. Surveys indicated that only 3 percent of Air Force entrants enlisted in order to get educational benefits under the Korean or GI bill. At the time of separation, however, at least 45 percent of the first-term separations occurred in order that the departees could take advantage of the educational benefits then available. The rate of such separations, unhappily but understandably, was higher among the technically qualified airmen, ment who were in critical short supply in the Air Force. Since the end of the Korean war improvements in the reenlisted rates, due mainly to the stepup in the career incentive program, have been accomplished. This proposed legislation, which could offer educational benefits worth $300 million a year, would directly cut down these carefully nurtured efforts and reduce the attractiveness of a military career. The certain effect of this legislation is to work against all the efforts the Congress and the Department of Defense have made to build up the Nation's Armed Forces with qualified and experienced men. Because of existing world tension, our Armed Forces must be adequate and ready at all times to defend the Nation. In view of technological advances in modern weapons and warfare, it is imperative that the armed services develop a larger hard core of career personnel. The turnover rate of military personnel should be reduced. I would like to add a statement here. I am for turnover when it relieves the armed services of men who are neither qualified for nor interested in providing the very great skills that we need in this primary and essential effort; and I am against turnover that in any way is caused by unnecessary attractions which take men out of the military service at the very point they are needed most. In order to reduce turnover, major emphasis should be placed on the incentive factors which can be gained by building up the attractiveness and prestige of military service. The provisions in the proposed legislation relating especially to educational benefits detract from building up the attractiveness and prestige of the services. All of us want our armed services to attain adequate and sufficient strength to do the toughest job of our lives. The services simply cannot do the job without obtaining and retaining the best men available. I implore this committee to not permit us to take any steps backward. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record the testimony that would have been given by Dr. Henry King Stanford, president of Birmingham-Southern College. That statement is available, and with the committee counsel for your consideration. Mr. QUIGLEY. If there is no objection, Dr. Stanford's testimony will be admitted at this point in the record. (The statement follows:) TESTIMONY OF DR. HENRY KING STANFORD I am Dr. Henry King Stanford, president of Birmingham-Southern College, Birmingham, Ala. I appear today for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States as a member of the chamber's government operations and expenditures committee. I will address myself to five aspects of the education and vocational training assistance program for peacetime veterans as proposed in S. 1138 and similar legislation proposed. They are: (1) The national chamber's overall position on education. (2) The questionable need for a program of educational and vocational training for peacetime veterans. (3) The inherent danger to academic standards in such a program. (4) The program's enormous potential cost. (5) The danger in establishing the precedent of such a program. CHAMBER POSITION ON EDUCATION The chamber believes that educational opportunity is the right of every American, and that such opportunity requires curricula properly balanced, providing both quantity and quality in education. Such opportunity also requires physical facilities to meet qualitative and quantitative needs in order to permit maximum achievement of educational objectives. Business requires educated leadership for its own advancement and is dependent upon the schools and colleges of the Nation to supply such leadership. With such a stake in the progress of education, businessmen subscribe to an aim for educational training which emphasizes the importance, responsibility, and dignity of the individual citizen. The chamber believes that students should be inspired to superior performance geared to their highest capacities and instincts rather than being satisfied with performance geared to the average. Because of a conviction that such an aim will not be advanced by the passage of proposals currently under consideration by this committee, the board of |