which will sustain not only our effort through the armed forces but which will sustain a domestic economy capable of supporting our effort in the war.

Senator DOWNEY. Well, may I ask you this question, and if you may answer it without any violation of the confidential information you have: Is it your opinion that we, by a year from next January, could maintain 5,000,000 of our Army in foreign lands and still maintain our support of the Allies?

Mr. McNUTT. I could not answer that, because there is a reflection then immediately as to how many we are going to send overseas.

Senator DOWNEY. Of course, I understand the necessity of the Chiefs of Staff and the staffs maintaining their own confidence in these matters but, of course, it leaves Congress and everybody in the position where they are totally incapable of judging in regard to any of these problems.

I might say, Mr. McNutt, I was left in a total sense of confusion by reading your recent article in the American. You stated that it would require 20 workers, or 18 perhaps, back of each soldier, and then you stated that by American ingenuity and energy we could cut that ratio in two, without explaining how.

Mr. McNUTT. That is right. It can be done by improvement of methods, there is no question about that, and there have been some remarkable improvements.

Senator DoWNEY. Lt us take 10 in back of each soldier

Mr. McNUTT (interposing). Let me get to the point, Senator. There is no need of my arguing the point. What we are interested in is the total number to be in the armed forces. Once they determine that, where they send them, whether they are going to serve abroad or serve here is for the military authorities to decide. We do know how many they have to have.

Senator DOWNEY. Governor McNutt, I cannot quite agree with your statement. This is my own opinion, based upon military information: It would take 25,000,000 more Americans to support an Army of 5,000,000 fighting on foreign lands than are being trained in the United States of America. That is a military statement I have received, and your own statement that ordinarily it is expected to take 18 workers back of each fighting man is an even stronger statement. I do not see how the Manpower Commission or the War Production Board can have any rational idea on how critical this problem is or what we do unless they themselves have some general knowledge of how many men we expect to have in Australia, how many in Africa, how many in the islands, and how many in Europe.

Mr. McNUTT. Well, it is true that the length of the line of communication is a factor.

Senator DOWNEY. Not only that, but the destruction and wounding of your men, and by disease.

Mr. McNUTT. The casualty loss, there is no question about that; how many replacements will be necessary.

Senator DOWNEY. Sure. Governor McNutt, I want to concur in what Senator Hill said, in congratulating you on the very able and comprehensive statement you read to us. I do consider it a very fine, able, and comprehensive statement. However, so far as you can, instead of having you tell us how you expect to deal with the problem, I would like to know something more about what the problem is

expected to be, say a year from this January. Now, how many more workers do we expect to have in employment a year from this January than we have now?

Mr. McNUTT. The statement I made was approximately 5,000,000. Senator DoWNEY. Five million more?

Mr. McNUTT. Yes.

Senator DowNEY. And we expect to have about 5,000,000 more people in the military service?

Mr. McNUTT. That is right.

Senator DOWNEY. Approximately?

Mr. McNUTT. Yes.

Senator DOWNEY. So we expect to draw upon the Nation for about 10,000,000 more people?

Mr. McNUTT. That is right. That is for war production. will be transfers from nonessential to essential occupations.

There

Senator DOWNEY. Are you able to tell us, Governor McNutt, about what is the net gain that you expect to get by the drafting of the group from 18 to 20?

Mr. McNUTT. Well, there are approximately 2,500,000 in that group. The Army will have to give the figures as to how many have already enlisted.

Senator DOWNEY. About 500,000, I think, in the Army and Navy. Mr. McNUTT. Then there is the question of how this age group will stand up on the physical examination. The rejections in all other age groups have been around 40 percent, and I was making the estimate of between 25 and 30 percent for this group, rejections on account of physical inability.

Senator DOWNEY. Governor McNutt, that was not quite what I meant to ask by my question.

Mr. McNUTT. In other words, what will be the net?

Senator DOWNEY. I am not referring to the net gain to the Army but the net gain in terms of manpower. Let me put it to you this way. Do you know the number of males now between 18 and 20 who are either in the Army or training for military service, or engaged in either farming or essential occupations?

Mr. McNUTT. Yes.

Senator DoWNEY. And about what is that?

Mr. McNUTT. Well, I will have to submit those to you. They are not in my mind right now. Five hundred thousand you say for the Army and Navy services. That is merely an estimate.

Senator DOWNEY. That is merely an estimate. One was 400,000 and one was 500,000. Governor McNutt, here is what I want to ask you: Will the utilization of the group between 18 and 20, as we intend to do it maybe in industry and certainly in this draft bill, appreciably increase the amount of manpower we now have in the Nation, or are we already utilizing the manpower? That is what I want to try to find out.

Mr. McNUTT. We are utilizing all except those who are students. Senator DOWNEY. Practically all of the young people who are not in school are working?

Mr. McNUTT. That is right.

Senator DOWNEY. So there is going to be practically no net increment to the Nation's manpower by drawing upon this reservoir of youth.

Mr. McNUTT. The only men will be those who will come from educational institutions, and I am not so sure that that is a net gain. Senator DOWNEY. Are you familiar with Mayor LaGuardia's ideas on that?

Mr. McNUTT. I am not.

Senator DoWNEY. That we should allow the ones to remain in college who are there now, under the supervision of the Army, to take military training there?

Mr. McNUTT. No; I did not read his testimony.

Senator DOWNEY. Governor McNutt, I would like to turn to a problem that is peculiar to my own region, that is, the State of California, and I cannot exaggerate its critical importance to you. Now, as we sit here talking, daily hundreds of farmers are leaving their farms in California. They are leaving and I do not know how we are ever going to get them back. I have thousands of letters in my files indicating that, and the reports from the different agencies indicate that. Bankers are refusing to make loans for next year's crops, because they have no assurance that the crops will ever be brought in. The big companies are refusing to plant, because they do not know where they are going to get the workers. Right today, as we are talking here, that problem is steadily being aggravated.

Now, I wanted to ask you, What is the present policy of your department in relation to bringing Mexican labor into California and into the West?

Mr. McNUTT. We will request the Mexican Government to permit the importation of Mexican labor wherever there can be certification made by the United States Employment Service that they are needed in any particular locality, and where the conditions imposed by the Mexican Government and agreed to by our Government will be met. Senator DOWNEY. Governor McNutt, you are a very busy man and I hate to impose on you generally, so I am going to seize this opportunity to impress certain ideas of my own upon you that might help us in California.

Last February and March it should have been plain to anybody but blind men that we were going to have a tremendous crisis in farm labor in California. I met with representatives of the different Federal agencies there, very idealistic men, very learned, very anxious to help in every possible way, but they were so theoretical and unaware of the practicality of life that they did not believe there was going to be any crisis, and they would work out for me on blueprints how many men we could get from W. P. A., how many women we could get, how many we could get from the schools, and so forth, reaching the conclusion that we were going to have more farm workers than we needed.

I can personally assure you that in many of our farm industries this year we have lost 20 to 30 percent of our farm crops. Now, it is my belief that there has been an extreme reluctance among the members of your group, in your department, to help relieve that situation by bringing in Mexican workers. I know we have gone through the motion of negotiating a treaty and saying we were going to do it, but things which should have been done in days have taken months, and finally, instead of having 100,000 or 150,000 Mexican workers, which we should have, we will have maybe at the end of the season about 4,000, and hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of crops rotting on the ground.

Now, is there no way, Governor McNutt, that those problems can, in some way, be speeded up and given effective, practical attention? Mr. McNUTT. Well, I will answer that by saying, of course there must be a way. We have got to solve these problems. The negotiations with Mexico did take a long time, because those were in the hands of the State Department.

Senator DOWNEY. Now, I understand that in the United States Employment Service, in one case, it took a month to 6 weeks for your department to answer a letter that should have been answered in 24 hours. I do not know that that is correct.

Mr. McNUTT. I do not know either. It should not be, although there has been a tremendous load put upon the Employment Service. Senator DOWNEY. I wish that job would be turned over to me, to get Mexican laborers in here. I do not speak immodestly when I say they would have been here by April anyway. Any man of ordinary intelligence and energy could have done it.

Mr. McNUTT. I am afraid the order does not apply. We might ask the Senate to release you and let you hop on that.

Senator DOWNEY. Governor McNutt, it is a problem so critically important out in California that I cannot exaggerate it. I suppose you are aware of the fact that we are now going into a crisis in the airplane industry. In the last 2 weeks the volume is tremendously off. Workers are leaving their jobs, the forecasts of schedules are not being met at all, due to lack of labor instead of lack of material. We are just missing the time table all over the world. I think in many cases we are making vital mistakes.

Governor McNutt, I would like to ask you this: Would you think it is proper that I should ask you to submit to this committee, for our. examination, the correspondence of your department on this Mexican labor problem, between its own representatives and with the other departments of the Government and with the Mexican Government? Mr. McNUTT. I could give you a résumé of it. The correspondence, I expect, is voluminous.

Senator DowNEY. I would like to see it. The reason I would like to see it, Governor McNutt, I want to see an effort made to bring these Mexican workers in for next year. It is too late to do anything this year because our harvest season is almost over. I would like to find where were the delays and what were the various difficulties that impeded anything substantial being done. I would like to find out, from an examination of the record, how long the State Department delayed it, how long the Immigration Department delayed it, how long the United States Employment Service delayed it, how long the State representatives delayed it, and how long the Army may have delayed it. Time and tide do not wait for anybody, and we are soon going to have to have these crops harvested.

Mr. McNUTT. I will be very glad to submit for the record a statement on that whole development.

Senator DOWNEY. Thank you very much. I want to make it clear in the record that nothing I am saying, by the widest implication, is in criticism of Governor McNutt or what he has done, because this was a problem that was not under his supervision at that time. There is no implication of any criticism.

I have just two or three questions more and then I am through.

Senator HILL. I am going to have to leave. As I understand it, the Senate is meeting tomorrow at 11 o'clock. I wanted, as I indicated earlier, to get General McSherry to give us a picture of just exactly what this whole set-up is of the Manpower and this Federal Employment Agency, and the whole picture all down the line, so we may get it from top to the grass roots, so to speak. I suppose General McSherry will be available any time to give us that picture. I think if we get that picture early in these hearings it might be helpful to us. I have to leave. I do not suppose we can meet tomorrow but we could meet almost any day thereafter.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand most of the members are desirous of being on the floor tomorrow. The Senate meets at 11 o'clock, and we could not accomplish a great deal if we met tomorrow morning. I have conferred with Senator Austin and several other members of the committee and it seems to meet with their approval that we do not meet tomorrow.

Senator HILL. Could you come Friday?

General MCSHERRY. Friday morning at 10 o'clock?
Senator HILL. Whatever time the Senator sets.

Senator THOMAS of Idaho. If we are meeting tomorrow at 11 o'clock, it is for the purpose of speeding up the draft.

Senator HILL. That is right.

Senator THOMAS of Idaho. And the chances are we might not pass that bill tomorrow.

Senator HILL. I had that in mind. Here is what I had in mind: If tomorrow afternoon we see we cannot pass it, we will call the meeting for Friday morning at 10 o'clock and the chairman could advise General McSherry whether the committee could or could not meet. The reason I suggested Friday morning is so that the general might not make some other engagement, that he might hold himself in a tentative state, that the general hold himself available, if that is agreeable to him and to the committee, so if we do meet on Friday that we will have him present.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be agreeable to you?

General McSHERRY. Yes.

Senator DowNEY. I just have two or three questions. Governor McNutt, will the appointment of a regional director, or of the regional directors, be made by you or upon your advice and recommendation? Mr. McNUTT. That is right.

Senator DowNEY. That is right?

Mr. McNUTT. That is right, and those appointments have all been made.

Senator DOWNEY. Who is the regional director for the West?
Mr. McNUTT. Mr. Hopkins.

Senator DOWNEY. Who is Mr. Hopkins, if I might ask?

Mr. McNUTT. He has long been engaged with us in our effort out there, first with W. P. B. in the Labor Supply Division. He is from Los Angeles, a man who has been interested in labor relations and in this whole program of manpower in the West. I think he is doing an excellent job. Our reports are all to that effect.

Senator DOWNEY. Is he a man who is acquainted with farming conditions, do you know, Governor McNutt?

Mr. McNUTT. I think he is. He is a man of wide general experience.